Bill is right.
The impact of low income housing to the infrastructure of the Town mandated services can never be off set by taxes.
Such a development will be a drain on the Town and will serve no purpose to those permanent residents that are trying to figure out how to pay their taxes.
The Town should never be involved in the construction or housing industry.

This town is the last refuge of trailer parks-17 total parks-other towns have outlawed them.   There are a number of private low-income housing units owned by non-profits.  There is “Section Eight” housing everywhere-including welfare families in luxury ocean view apartments in Onset.   Yet, we should be very afraid of the impact of housing for the elderly on tourists. 

This economy has been hell for everyone.  People who retired ten or twenty years ago could not have forseen major inflation, outrageous tax hikes, crashing IRAs and 401Ks.  Perhaps retired bankers are doing okay, but many retired teachers are hurting.  We all get old.  I don’t think we should resort to the old Eskimo custom of floating the elderly out to sea.

heres a question since bruce is soooo passionate about the senior housing why not have in on the swifts beach property???

Sorry I was being sarcastic. As in ---How does elderly housing add to the "urban blight"?

The Town should not be in the housing and construction business.
If no one is responding to a RFP, wouldn't it make sense to believe that the businessman out there who does this for a living doesn't see any value in it?
Government should never to go into competition with the private sector.
People in the private sector can't afford to engage in deficit spending.

16.2 percent of the population (3,290) in the community was 65 years and over, compared to 12.40% nationally
   
13.5% of those 65 and older were living below the poverty line

These are stats based on the 2000 census. 13.5% of 65 and older living in poverty comes to about 444 people. If watched Marcia Griswold  presentation to the BOS about the seniors in Wareham this past March or April, you can see her numbers were wrong. She said we had 9000 seniors in Wareham that would be almost half the population. She also said 75% of our seniors live at or below the poverty level. Not one of the BOS questioned her stats. The census numbers  are 10 years old, but I think Wareham’s population is going down not up. ( except for the summer people)

These numbers are based on what information people feel like giving the census. I have friends who technically live at the poverty level because when filling out the census form, they say they only receive social security. They own their own homes, some of whom have downsized like my husband and I did, so they have money in the bank. They have IRA’s or CD’s, some have both. They ONLY give this info to the IRS, they would NEVER give their net worth to the census. So I think that number of 444 seniors living in poverty could come down a little.

Dan…  I am not against low income senior housing. I would like to know how many units we really need.  The last time Mr. Heaton talked about Westfield it was my impression that the developers thought the space was much bigger than what they needed for the development.

As I mentioned on another thread, I know I heard at one of the selectman’s meeting that somewhere someone had done a plan on how to expand Agawam. The number of additional units would depend if you chose a two story or three story plan. We have already paid a consultant for these plans, where are they? If there is federal money available I think a better choice would be to redo Agawam. Agawam is close to Toby Hospital, I think that is a plus. I know Gatra goes there, I’m not sure if the owl does. Public transportation is a major issue for seniors.