Seniors raising kids find a home

David Kihara

Tuesday, March 1, 2005 | 8:39 a.m.

Community members and city officials celebrated the opening of a new housing development in Las Vegas that will provide low-income homes to seniors caring for their grandchildren.

The 100-unit housing development, which opened in early January, is located at 1100 W. Monroe Ave. near Martin Luther King Boulevard. It specifically targets the 15,000-plus seniors in Clark County who are caring for one or more of their grandchildren.

Named the J. David Hoggard Family Community after the Las Vegas civil rights pioneer and unveiled on the last day of Black History Month, the housing development is estimated to be the second such facility aimed at helping seniors who are caring for their grandchildren -- a group that has received little attention in Nevada and across the country, critics say.

The $10 million project was built by the Community Development Programs Center of Nevada with the city, state Housing Authority and various lending institutions.

The J. David Hoggard Family Community accepts only seniors who are legally caring for their grandchildren. Rents range from $500 to $700 depending on the unit, or could cost between 40 percent to 60 percent of the resident's median income, depending if the individual qualifies.

In Clark County, 15,261 grandparents are responsible for their grandchildren, according to 2003 figures from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Another 36,836 grandparents have their own grandchildren in the same household, the Census Bureau stated.

"If a child needs to be taken out of the home, our first alternative is to look for a relative," said Susan Klein-Rothschild, director of the Clark County Department of Family Services, on Monday.

Finding a willing relative to care for a child who has been removed from the home is sometimes complicated in the Las Vegas Valley, however, because the of transitory nature of Clark County's population, she said.

"It is more difficult, but it is not a barrier" to finding appropriate care for the child, she said.

Klein-Rothschild estimated that there are approximately 7.3 million children living with a grandparent or other relative in the United States.

With so many seniors caring for grandchildren, the Hoggard Family Community could help ease the burden for some seniors, officials said.

"Grandmothers and grandfathers will have the opportunity to raise their grandchildren here," said Robert Gronauer, chairman of the Las Vegas Housing Authority.

While only a handful of seniors have taken up residence at the housing development, those interviewed on Monday praised the facility.

Vera Brown, 64, has raised her 18-year-old granddaughter Danielle Holmes at various times during the last 15 years. She and Holmes moved into the Hoggard facility on Jan. 7 -- she was the first resident to move in -- and said she enjoys living at the housing complex.

"It's a little cheaper and a little better" than her previous residence at Helen Avenue near Martin Luther King Boulevard, she said. "But I can live anywhere as long as no one bothers me."

Brown, a housekeeper at the Bellagio, and a grandmother of nine and great-grandmother of three, said even though she is in her mid-60s, she would be willing to care for her other grand- and great-grandchildren.

"I might have to care for them sometimes. That's what grandmothers do," she said.