Residents will start moving into the Treehouse at Easthampton Meadow in June.
When children’s advocate Judy Cockerton was looking for a partner to develop an innovative community for seniors and families hoping to adopt children in foster care, her search quickly led to a Boston-based firm with a rich history of building mixed-income multifamily housing.
In a meeting with Harry Spence, commissioner of the state Department of Social Services, Cockerton sought some guidance on finding a developer. Spence, who used to work for the housing authorities in Boston and Cambridge, had no trouble coming up with a recommendation, recalled Cockerton.
Cockerton was quickly introduced to Howard Cohen and Pam Goodman, two executives of Beacon Communities, who agreed to help her make her vision a reality. That was four years ago. Today, some families and seniors are preparing to move into the new community in Easthampton next month.
“Working with Beacon Communities has been a dream. They are so professional,” said Cockerton, who established a nonprofit group called Treehouse Foundation four years ago to support adoptive families and those caring for children in foster care.
A former teacher and business owner, Cockerton said she had plenty of experience fund-raising and developing and implementing programming but, “I didn’t have clue how to build a community from the ground up.”
“When I partnered with Beacon, we moved from square 2 to square 500,” she said last week.
Known as Treehouse at Easthampton Meadow, the 47-acre village features three components: 60 rental homes, 33 for-sale single-family and duplex homes, and seven single-family home lots.
The rental homes, which will be managed by Beacon Communities, are in the process of being completed.
With experience in pulling together complicated projects, Beacon Communities was eager to work with Cockerton and Treehouse Foundation.
“We just thought it was a very, very compelling project,” said Goodman.
Treehouse at Easthampton Meadow is the first intergenerational planned community in the Bay State that will bring together seniors, prospective adoptive and foster parents, and children awaiting adoption.
From a development standpoint, the project presented several challenges. For one, permitting was tricky because the site was large and included wetlands, said Goodman. Seventeen acres were eventually gifted to the city to preserve as open space.
Financing the project, which includes housing for lower-income households, also involved meshing together an assortment of resources – including federal and state tax credits and funds from MassHousing and the Community Economic Development Assistance Corp.
Only six of the 60 townhouse-style apartments are market-rate and the rest are affordable, said Goodman, president of Beacon Communities Development.
Forty-eight of the apartments will include one bedroom. Those single-story units are for seniors 55 and older who have an interest in mentoring and supporting the adopted and foster children living in the community. The remaining 12 apartments will feature three, four and five bedrooms, and priority for those homes will be given to foster and adoptive families.
Residents of the one-bedroom apartments will pay monthly rents ranging from approximately $487 to $600, while rents for the larger apartments range from $844 to $1,100.
Rental applications are currently being accepted, and roughly half of the family apartments have been rented so far, said Goodman.
On-Site Resources
Kerry Homstead, a community facilitator for Treehouse Foundation who is helping to recruit residents, said newspaper articles and even a feature on the “Dr. Phil” television program last month have helped spread the word about the community.
Seniors from throughout Massachusetts and even from other states have expressed interest, she noted.
A series of open houses last month were well attended, according to Homstead, and four more are planned for this month.
Supporters of the community say among its unique aspects are the resources and support system that will be provided to residents. Treehouse Foundation has partnered with Berkshire Center for Families and Children, a foster and adoptive care placement agency that will provide on-site social services and assistance to families living in the community.
Children, many of whom have been shuffled from foster home to foster home, will get a sense of permanency and have a chance to build long-lasting relationships.
“One of the tragedies of foster care is that kids bounce around a lot. Even when kids are adopted, they bring issues with them, and families need a support system,” Homstead said.
Treehouse at Easthampton Meadow also features a community center with a kitchen and library that can be used for gatherings, celebrations and therapy programs.
Cockerton, who has two grown children and a 7-year-old girl whom she adopted out of the foster care system, said residents also will have access to a “menu” of programs.
For example, children living at Treehouse at Easthampton Meadow will have a chance to stay connected with siblings who are in foster care through a summer camp program, she said. And a yet-to-be built barn will give residents an opportunity to participate in an animal therapy program.
Cockerton said one of the reasons she decided to locate the community in the western part of the state is because the largest percentage of children in foster care statewide – 22 percent – are in the Pioneer Valley.
With the assistance from Beacon Communities, Cockerton selected the site in Easthampton.
Easthampton’s response to the endeavor was a “very warm welcome and a very strong embrace of the program,” Cockerton said.
Prellwitz/Chilinski Assoc., a Cambridge-based architectural firm, designed Treehouse at Easthampton Meadow.
While the rental homes are nearing completion, the 33 for-sale single-family and duplex homes have not been built.
Goodman said Beacon Communities is in the final stages of negotiating with a developer to construct the homes and anticipates construction to begin as early as this fall.
Twenty-four of the homes will be market-rate and nine will be for first-time homebuyers. Pricing hasn’t been finalized yet, but Goodman said prices likely will be in the high $200,000 range.
