New affordable housing community opens for seniors

For Helen Lee, Vintage at the Crossings isn’t just another housing development.

“This is really a God-send for me,” says Lee.

Lee has been homeless since her husband passed away almost three years ago, she says she had to sell her home immediately and had nowhere to go.

“I had to live in my car for a while and then some friends took me in until we found out about this and I was really ecstatic that I could finally get into something,” says Lee.

is made up of 230 apartments.

Governor Steve Sisolak says the new development is a good start for a state facing a critical housing issue, but adds Nevada needs tens of thousands of units built.

“You know we’ve brought more industry in, which is a good thing because with the industry and development come jobs. At the same time it drives up the cost of our housing inventory. We need more inventory like this. You don’t want to price this particular group of seniors and the veterans out of the housing market and that’s what’s happened,” says Governor Sisolak.

According to the Truckee Meadows Regional Planning Agency, approximately one-third of the residents living in the Truckee Meadows are considered either low income or very low-income.

The housing crisis may take years to fix, but for Lee, this affordable community, is making a difference in her life now.

“It means a whole lot, it means safety. It means something that I could call home, that would be my own. I honestly could cook instead of trying to make means of maybe a hamburger now and then or going to the fourth street for a meal, things like that,” says Lee.

The apartments are located on Old Virginia Road in South Reno.

Developers say rents at the new community are approximately five hundred dollars a month less than comparable apartments at market rate.

It took years to put this project together and now an under served community has more options.