Elderly Housing Development and Operations Corporation’s (EHDOC) recently announced that Palermo Lake in Miami is opening at the end of January 2008 and will celebrate its grand opening on February 18, 2009. In the fall of 2008, over 1000 seniors waited in line to receive an application for the 109 unit apartment building.

“We are delighted to be able to provide this new building and supportive services for 110 plus seniors, but are saddened by the reality that before this building moves in its first resident, there will be over 800 people on the waiting list,” commented Steve Protulis, EHDOC Executive Director. EHDOC currently has four other senior communities in Miami and the combined waiting list for those properties alone exceed 4,000.

“Housing for seniors has been ignored for too long and we now face a serious crisis. Anyone witnessing the seniors waiting in line for hours in the Florida heat just to be able to get an application clearly put a human face on this crisis,” said Morton Bahr, President of the EHDOC Board of Directors.

“Not only will we be celebrating the opening of this new building, but we will again emphasize the need to make it known that there is a terrible crisis in housing. Just this week in Florida the Legislature proposed $190, million in Affordable Housing Fund cuts and the Sadowski Coalition expects these cuts will have a devastating impact on housing not only for seniors but for many other low income demographic groups. We need to encourage local, state and federal officials to make housing a top priority with enough state, local and federal funds to make an impact.” stated Protulis.