Boise assisted-living residents plead: Save our homes. Don’t turn them into apartments
The letters came from residents at Boise’s Arbor Village at Hillcrest, an assisted-living home set to be converted to apartments.
“I do not know where I would go if I was asked to move,” wrote one man, age 90.
“I am almost blind and I am almost deaf,” wrote a woman, 70. “How am I going to get around to look at places? I don’t want to lose my friends here. ... It makes me cry to think about it.”
“I have no other place to live,” wrote another woman, in her early 70s. “My family doesn’t want me to move in with them. I am on a Medicaid/Medicare plan. I have no other resources.”
A campaign to defeat the plan by Arbor Village’s owner to renovate the building into market-rate multifamily rental units has taken on new life as the time for Boise officials to make a decision nears.
Dozens of residents have signed letters pleading for their homes to be saved. The two-story senior-care building was built in 1984 on a five-acre campus at 1093 S. Hilton St., south of Franklin Street and east of Curtis Road on the Central Bench. A city report said it was designed for up to 123 residents. More than 90 people now live there, according to a representative for its owner.
The owner is DiNapoli Capital Partners, a privately held real estate investment firm founded by F. Matthew DiNapoli in Walnut Creek, California. DiNapoli Capital applied in January 2022 for a city permit to turn Arbor Village’s 115 living units into 77 apartments.
“This proposal is aiming to fill a much-needed void in the residential arena as housing shortages are being felt throughout the city,” wrote the representative, Daphne Romani, an architect at Boise’s Erstad Architects, which is designing the renovation.
The Planning and Zoning Commission first approved DiNapoli’s request in April. Residents appealed to the City Council. In October, the council sent the application back to the commission, saying the owner had not properly notified the residents of the planned change.
The residents and neighbors were invited to hear and discuss the change at a meeting in the home shortly after Thanksgiving. More than 50 residents, families and neighbors attended, Romani told the city’s Planning and Development Services Department.
Now the planning commission expects to take up the redevelopment proposal for the second time in a public hearing on Monday.
‘In danger of becoming homeless’
Some residents dictated letters to city officials, addressed “To Whom It May Concern,” with the help of Sarah Rosin, a neighbor, and her mother, Kim Rosin, a social worker. Others signed a form letter to Mayor Lauren McLean and members of the City Council and the Planning and Zoning Commission.
“The proposed change ... could put us in danger of becoming homeless, a daunting thing to contemplate,” says the form letter, dated Dec. 1.
“When we first signed up to move into Arbor Village, we put our trust in the owners of Arbor Village, and in many cases, our life savings,” the letter says. “We weren’t just renting an apartment, we were creating a safe haven where we would live for the rest of our lives.”
Advocacy group seeks transition payments for residents
The Intermountain Fair Housing Council, a nonprofit that fights housing discrimination, has taken up the residents’ cause.
The council says the proposed conversion would add to a wave of 47 assisted-living closures in Idaho since 2018 that have cost the state 917 beds. Those closures include six in 2022 in the Treasure Valley that housed eight to 16 residents each.
“The residents and their families would be forced to scramble to find equivalent, new residential care facility for their loved ones in a shrinking and extremely competitive market,” two council staff members wrote in a letter dated Wednesday. “... Among elderly or disabled adults, involuntary transfer can lead to a decline in their physical and emotional well-being that can lead to significant health complications and even premature death.”
If the city approves the change, the housing council wants it to require DiNapoli to offer Arbor Village residents tenant-assistance packages.
The housing council noted that another developer offered financial assistance to residents of the former Ridenbaugh Place Apartments at South Protest Road and West Boise Avenue. Those affordable but aging apartments were torn down to make way for new ones now under construction that will house Boise State University students. The aid packages included $4,000 payments to tenants living in one-bedroom apartments and $5,500 payments to tenants in two-bedroom apartments., the Idaho Statesman previously reported.
The housing council’s proposed package for Arbor Village would include a 90- to 120-day advance notice of eviction, money to protect personal items, care and treatment during relocation, legal representation, and a placement worker. The letter to city officials does not specify a dollar amount.
DiNapoli, which owns Arbor Village through a company registered as Boise SH LLC, has drafted a transition plan that promises to “facilitate a safe and non-disruptive move for both our residents and staff.”
“Our goal is to provide consistent and accurate updates throughout the process and provide ample resources for help and assistance,” including visits to potential new residences, says the plan, which was posted Friday on the city’s permitting and licensing page. The plan does not mention financial aid.
What if the home’s workers quit?
The transition plan would be carried out by Arbor Village’s administrator and on-site management company, Integral Senior Living. The city’s Planning and Development Services staff says it is concerned that Arbor Village might not be able to provide the promised support if workers whose jobs would end take new jobs during the transition.
But Associate Planner Jesi Like wrote Friday that that Planning and Development Services is standing by its original recommendation to approve a conditional-use permit.
The proposed Hillcrest Apartments are compatible with the surrounding neighborhood, the building’s exterior will not change, the apartments won’t harm nearby properties, and the apartments meet development goals for housing in Boise’s comprehensive plan, the department said in March.
A lawyer representing DiNapoli said the company wants to do a good job and is “not going to put residents out on the street.”
“They care about the residents,” the lawyer, Armanda Schaus, said at October’s City Council meeting.
Monday’s public hearing is scheduled at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 150 N. Capitol Blvd.
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