Tampa housing apartments get facelift

TAMPA - This economy has given a lot of people headaches, and they can't afford to do much of anything.

But in Tampa, $25 million is putting a smile on quite a few faces.

Room by room, construction workers are giving the J. L. Young Apartments for senior citizens a complete facelift. About 450 public housing units will be remodeled from the ground up.

"We're installing new floors, new windows, new tile. Putting in air conditioning units," Tampa Housing Authority spokesperson Lillian Stringer said.

Old appliances in the more than three-decade old apartments will be replaced with new Energy Star boilers and furnaces to cut down energy costs.

The Tampa Housing Authority is getting about $25 million in stimulus funding from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development. The money is expected to improve thousands of affordable and public housing units around the city.

"You want to always improve your stock. And our housing stock wasn't bad in the beginning because we always consistently work on it," Stringer said. "But this money will infuse more efforts on our part to get things done."

Magnolia Parades just moved to the J. L.Young Apartments from Miami two months ago. She said she's looking forward to all the new changes.

Jose Gomez has lived in public housing for around four years and said his apartment is one of many needing an upgrade.

"It's coming out beautiful. They got the air conditioning on top. They got all brand new stuff, brand new floors. Paint job. Everything it looks good," Gomez said.

The stimulus money has also helped to hire several construction crews at numerous housing authority properties. It is expected take about three years to complete the face lift.