There's plenty to celebrate at the Lewinsville Retirement Residence these days.
In addition to commemorating the retirement community's 25th anniversary, a new addition, called Lewinsville East, was dedicated on May 19, opening up 18 new affordable housing units for senior citizens in Fairfax County.
"Most of our residents are below the 40th income percentile in the county," said Peg Hurney, an administrator at the Lewinsville.
"The median income in McLean is somewhere around $80,000 per year," said Lewinsville President Douglas McGuire. "We have some residents here who only receive social security benefits."
The apartments, many of which are one-bedroom units featuring either a balcony or a terrace, are supplemented annually by $1.6 million in funding from the Housing and Urban Development office of Fairfax County.
With the addition of 18 units, a total of 161 units are available at the Lewinsville, which opened in 1980.
"Over 96 percent of our residents are low-income," said Bill Chenault, a past president of the Lewinsville who is credited with being a major force in making the dream of the addition a reality.
"We really benefited from starting with the Board of Supervisors, which is a very capable group in dealing with any volunteer organization," Chenault said. The Board of Supervisors in turn helped Chenault and the rest of the Lewinsville organization work with the Planning Commission to make the new addition possible. "Everyone talks about the friction with working with these boards, but we didn't have any at all," he said.
In 1998, when the Evans Farm townhouse complex was announced, Chenault, who was president of the Lewinsville at the time, realized that the community would be landlocked with no room to grow or any green space for residence to view.
"The residents of the neighborhood began to rally against the Evans Farm development," he said. "I knew they didn't have a chance. I proposed to the Board of Supervisors to appeal to the Planning Commission to have the affordable dwelling units here because the land here would have to be developed into a condominium-type facility."
THE LAND WAS owned through a partnership between WestGroup and the Evan Street Development agency, and $5 million that had been held in reserve by the Lewinsville organization was used to purchase the land and fund the addition, he said.
"This whole area was pastures and farm land," said Alan Stevens, a former president of the Lewisville and current treasurer. "When Evans Farm was announced, we had all the people who lay in front of bulldozers here. It was inevitable that this land would be developed, but Bill saw through it to find a way to make it work in the community."
The addition was designed with the guidance and approval of the Evans Street Development group to be in keeping with the look of their townhouses, the prices of which begin at over $1 million, Stevens said.
"Everyone's happy with the situation," he said.
"Bill's vision was not only that the building should be built, but also to include two offices for nurses and podiatrists who visit here," McGuire said. "HUD has restrictions on medical areas in retirement communities, but eventually those restrictions will change, and we'll be ready for it."
There are two meeting rooms built into the basement of the Lewinsville East extension for "community outreach," he said, and the Lewinsville Presbyterian Church has already used one of the rooms for showing movies. The Evans Farm homeowner's association holds its meetings in the room as well, he said.
"We have a relationship with the Fairfax County Share Care Program, which provides housekeeping and personal care services and allows people to remain in a less restrictive living situation as long as possible," Hurney said. "The design of this building will allow for future services to come in to preserve that independence for our residents."
Allowing seniors to stay self-reliant as long as possible reverberates throughout the Lewinsville residence.
"My motto is that the twilight can be one of the nicest times of day," Chenault said. A person's later years can be as enjoyable as the earlier part of his or her life if we go about preparing for it."
The rising cost of living in Northern Virginia plays a role in people needing affordable housing at a growing rate, Stevens said. "We foresaw that the people who will suffer the most from rising property taxes and living costs are the elderly. We have a great sense of pride in what we've accomplished in the opening of the Lewinsville East addition," he said.
For his work at the Lewinsville, especially with the East addition, Chenault received the Virginia Association of Non-Profit Homes for the Aging award in 2004, McGuire said.
"I've never had an opportunity to do something I enjoyed so much," Chenault said. "I should be thanking the staff here. This is a great board. They've all achieved so much themselves."
In addition to housing, the Lewinsville has social programs for its residents, including a meal program.
"We've created an endowment that allows people who can't afford the meal program to participate in it," McGuire said. "Keeping people social as long as possible helps them stay mentally alert and active longer."
"HUD provides the supplemental housing costs, of course, but the church realized early on that it would need money to provide programs to enrich the residents' lives," Hurney said. "Friends of Lewinsville provides that funding. It's a critical organization and the enrichment wouldn't exist without them and their help."