With affordable senior living becoming a rarity in D.C, Friendship Terrace in Tenleytown is finding ways to help low-income seniors live in retirement communities.
In February, Friendship Terrace, a medium-sized apartment complex in Ward 3, announced it would be opening up 125 “deeply affordable” housing units for independent seniors, making the retirement community open to low-income D.C. residents. In addition, Seabury Resources for Aging, which owns and manages the apartments, announced it would establish a $2 million food trust to support residents in need, as one in two seniors in the D.C. area experiences food insecurity daily, according to the Capital Area Food Bank.
Many communities for older residents are expensive, which means it can be hard for low-income seniors to live on their own in accessible apartments, but complexes like Friendship Terrace hope to provide the solution. One Friendship Terrace resident, Sharin Majarowitz, who has been living there for over a year, said she is “well satisfied” at Friendship Terrace, and glad she can live independently in her apartment.
“Seniors deserve to have their needs met. Everybody benefits when their needs are met,” Ward 3 Councilmember Matt Frumin said at the open house for the new units on Feb. 13. Frumin has advocated for the importance of creating accessible housing for D.C.’s aging population.
D.C. has a lack of deeply affordable housing, which is housing available to those who make 30% or below of an area’s median income (AMI). In D.C., that’s around $32,000 for an individual, or $37,000 for a couple, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The AMI is used by agencies such as the D.C. Housing Authority to determine who qualifies for a housing voucher or public housing.
At Friendship Terrace, rent for tenants in the deeply affordable units is subsidized by vouchers through a partnership between the D.C. Housing Authority and Seabury. Tenants receive Section 8 vouchers specific to the apartment complex, and pay rent proportional to their savings and no more than 30% of their income.
“It was phenomenal. Residents could not believe the savings they were able to keep in their bank accounts,” Semira Ligon, the executive director of Friendship Terrace for over 10 years, said.
Ligon said the partnership between Seabury and the D.C. Housing Authority (DCHA) was over four years in the making. She encouraged other property owners to partner with DCHA to provide affordable housing to their residents. In 2023, the Lisner-Louise-Dickson-Hurt Home, for instance, broke ground on a new affordable housing complex for seniors in Friendship Heights, using both vouchers and money from the city’s Housing Production Trust Fund to ensure units are affordable.
Sheila Foxworth, a 78-year-old resident who has been at Friendship Terrace since 2023, said her experience at the complex has been “up and down.”
“It took a while for me to adjust, but I’m doing good now,” she said. Foxworth was a former property manager, she said, so it took time to acclimate to the way Seabury managed the apartments.
The property has features tailored to senior residents. The complex is equipped with cameras, so staff can alert paramedics if a tenant has a medical emergency. It also has a pantry where residents with severe food insecurity can go to receive essentials for free, according to Mary Toussaint, a services coordinator at Friendship Terrace who gave Street Sense a tour of the property. On the fifth floor, there is a greenhouse with plants donated from tenants or nearby community members. Residents like Miss Iris take time to tend to the garden.
Friendship Terrace accepts seniors as young as 62 and as old as 103, with some exceptions for younger individuals who have disabilities. Those interested can complete an online application and paperwork, which can be emailed, faxed, or delivered in-person to the property.
Moving forward, Ligon hopes other property managers, both for seniors and for the general public, will take something away from Friendship Terrace’s approach to interacting with tenants. “Advocate for your residents. Healthy and happy residents equal a healthy and happy property,” Ligon said.
Editor’s Note: This article was co-published with The Eagle, which the author is also a writer for.
