Village Apartments

Shirley

I used to live in Village Apartments. It was a senior housing subsidized by the state of Vermont. You had your own apartments. There was a common room, a laundry room, and there were 14 apartments there, and it was lovely. It was like a big family. We have what we called the common room and the librarian came every two weeks from the local library, and she would bring books and we would sign them out and send them back. We have what they call "Willing Hands" and that was a place that would bring in fresh vegetables once a week and sometimes they had meat, sometimes they had milk, depending on what was on the truck. They also had food boxes that came once a month, if you were eligible (I was not, my income was about $100 over), and what one couldn't use, they would give to another. So, everybody got something. At Christmas time, a charity place would bring around a bag that had canned goods and gift certificates to a food store, which was $50 or $60. At Easter and in the summer, we would all get together and have Easter dinner in our community room or we would have a summer barbecue. It was just a nice place to live. We did our own cooking and shopping. There was only just a maintenance person and an occupancy manager. There were people above them, but we didn't see them often. They had inspections every few months. If there was anything wrong with the apartment, you reported it, and the maintenance person came and fixed it, but you're basically on your own. The activities were put on by the people who lived in the apartment. The management paid for it, but we had to put it together ourselves. The maintenance person helped and did the cooking on the summer barbecue. The other person and I put the Easter dinner together, and we planned out the summer barbecue. Everybody knew everybody else and we all worked together. If somebody was having a problem, they got help from one of their neighbors. The cost went by your income. They charged 30% of your gross income, but if you had medical expenses that you paid out of pocket, like insurance and any medical bills, that was deducted. Everything was lovely. Each apartment had a kitchen and a living room combination, a walk-in closet, a huge bathroom, and a bedroom with a closet. If you needed a walk-in shower, they put it in. They were very accommodating. We also had a nurse who came in on Wednesdays that did blood pressure and then we had a counselor. You could call her for anything that you needed health-wise or filling out forms or whatever. It's kind of a social worker-type thing.