VIDEO: Community Celebrates Senior Housing

Government officials and members of the East Hampton community joined with the St. Michael's Lutheran Church congregation on Thursday to celebrate 40 new homes for seniors in Amagansett.

The $11 million St. Michael's Senior Housing was finished late last year, and tenants started to move in in January. The new affordable housing complex, on the grounds of the Lutheran parish on Montauk Highway, took 13 years to come to fruition, but the sentiment at the ceremonial ribbon cutting was to look toward the future.

Bishop Robert Alan Rimbo, of the Metropolitan New York Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, traveled to Amagansett for the ceremony and thanked the community for supporting the idea the congregation first had over a decade ago.

"What you have done is provided a model for us in various places throughout the church — and not only throughout the Lutheran church but in other religious communities — is to find a way to serve people with what God wants; wholeness, wellness, safe place, a good place to call home."

Emily Cullum, 85, said she is thrilled with her first-floor apartment, which she opened up to the community after the ceremony so that they could see the finished product on the inside. A Montauk native, she lived in Amagansett for 35 years, and had to move in with her children as she got older. "It's good to have a home," she said.

Tenants, who have to be at least 62, won a lottery to receive the apartments.
They have to have an annual income of $37,000 or less, but under HUD requirements, the housing had to be opened to those who make less than $22,000.

A majority of are from the East Hampton and Amagansett area, while others are returning to the area after living further west because they couldn't afford to live here. Two of the tenants who moved in were homeless. Some had been waiting for nearly a decade.

Construction began in February 2012, following the demolition of the old parsonage a few hundred yards from the church in December 2011. But, the approval process and securing funding has taken more than eight years since St. Michael's looked to the Windmill affordable housing board for assistance.

Michael DeSario, who sits on the St. Michael's Housing board of directors, said the complex not only provides 40 homes now, but for generations to come. "Now that the buildings are up, we continue our work as we help this community continue to flourish and become home to our seniors," he said. "It's not just another project. It's a healthy home for our seniors to live out their lives with safety, self-respect and dignity."

Gerry Mooney, the manager who worked on the project since the beginning, thanked Marge Harvey, a member of the congregation who formed the planning committee, and the Rev. Dr. Katrina Foster, who took over the project three years ago when she joined St. Michael's.

Harvey said it all began when a pastor challenged the congregation to find ways for the small congregation to reach out to the community. "The project took us all on. It became a group that wanted to see this project accomplished. It wasn't just one person. You can't do anything alone, it's always in a group," she said.