Reason for
referral Home health provider contacted COHHIO for assistance for a patient who needed reasonable momodifications in her rental unit. Question was whether the property is covered by Section 504.
Summary of Findings Using the OPC database, COHHIO determined that Watermark Village is a Low Income Housing Tax Credit property which was constructed in 2010. LIHTC properties are not generally covered by Section 504 unless there was additional DIRECT FEDERAL ASSISTANCE.
COHHIO contacted the Ohio Housing Finance Agency to determine if there were Federal funds involved in the project. OHFA confirmed that Federal funds were used in order to finance the property. During the time in 2009-2010 when the Tax Credit Bond market was frozen up, Congress enacted ARRA which included a provision for Tax Credit Exchange (TCE) funds to assist owners to sell credits to raise capital. Armed with this information, COHHIO reached out to FHEO in Washington DC to determine if TCE funding was "direct Federal Assistance" within the jurisdiction of Section 504. Answer: yes.
Property Information
Watermark Senior Apartments 1852 Front
Street Cuyahoga Falls 44221 Summit nc Testa Enterprises 2335 Second
Street Cuyahoga
Falls OH 44221 fp Testa Joel Mr. 330-929.1988 330-928-7755 joeltesta@testacompanies.com 0 0 24 16 0 0 1 40 40 Senior no no no 100% 40% 60% 50% 50% 10% 35% $552,260 Testa
Enterprises Congregate Management Services
Background on Congregate Management
Services
http://www.cmshousing.com/
Next steps With the property research complete, COHHIO referred the tenant and her health
provider to Fair Housing Contact Service (the FHIP agency in Summit
County) to make an RA request on behalf of the tenant. Turns out that FHCS had another complainant from the same property and so the cases moved forward in tandem.
In both cases, owners' legal counsel agreed with the research developed by COHHIO and agreed to pay for the requested modifications.
