After 55 years of living in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, Lotte Mandel gave up her large apartment there last October.

"I felt the place was too much for me," said the 91-year-old great-grandmother.

So she moved into a one-bedroom flat in the independent living section of the Lester Senior Housing Community, nudged by her persistent son, Lenny Mandel.

He is a West Orange financial consultant who works on weekends as a cantor for Congregation B’nai Israel in Emerson. His mother said that he and his wife, Shelly, "pushed very hard. They felt I should move closer to them."

But the cost of moving to the housing complex on the Alex Aidekman Family Jewish Community Campus in Whippany could have been prohibitive.

The market-rate rent for a one-bedroom at the Margaret and Martin Heller Independent Living Apartments is between $2,038 and $2,160 per month, a bit above Mandel’s price range.

"I wouldn’t have been able to afford something that was so high," she said as she sat on the couch in her living room.

But a program operated by the Jewish Community Housing Corporation of MetroWest, which operates the senior complex, is taking advantage of a state subsidy to offer lower-cost apartments in two sizes.

Vacant units renting for $1,556 and $1,720 are currently available.

JCHC executive director Harold Colton-Max said he hopes other eligible seniors will follow Lotte Mandel’s lead in moving to Lester.

"We have a small number of vacancies, and we don’t have a long waiting list for these units," he said. "People have a clear impression that Lester Senior Housing Complex, because of all the services we offer, is available only to those people who are well off. But we offer choices for people who require lower-cost options in both assisted and independent living."

At the adjacent Judy and Josh Weston Assisted Living Residences, the JCHC is joining in New Jersey’s Medicaid waiver program. It allows eligible people to use state funds to pay for assisted-living facilities rather than nursing homes.

Colton-Max said Weston offers "a certain number of units" for those who qualify for Medicaid and need some assistance with activities of daily living.

"You have to have assets of less than $2,000 and income less than $1,800 a month in order to qualify," said Colton-Max. "In these cases, people will pay a portion of their income as a room and board fee, and then the state comes in and provides a subsidy by paying us a certain amount per day that the person lives in the building."

On both wings of the housing complex, savings are substantial.

At the assisted living facility, where six units are now available, those who qualify can save "literally thousands of dollars per month," he said.

In the independent living section, where three units are now vacant, Colton-Max measures the savings in "hundreds of dollars" of rent each year.

In both wings, the JCHC waives the $12,500 entrance fee that market-rate tenants are required to pay.

Although the lower-rent apartments are slightly smaller than the more costly ones, all units have the same amenities.

They include a refrigerator, freezer, microwave oven, dishwasher, washer and dryer, twice-a-month housekeeping, and access to the on-premises doctor, dentist, hair stylist, podiatrist, and physical therapist. Religious services are also held in the complex.

"Life is very nice here," said Mandel. "First, I get physical therapy, which helps me get into the bathtub. The whole place is a nice, lovely place. Nobody bothers you. You can go to the activities if you want to and if you don’t want to, you don’t go."

And yet after all those years in Brooklyn, living at Lester still takes some getting used to.

"I’m not used to being in a surrounding where everybody is a senior," she said. "This is new for me. It’s questionable. But I am not a complainer."

Local stories posted courtesy of the New Jersey Jewish News