Somerville Housing Authority’s (SHA) Capen Court Redevelopment  will breakground April 6, on the same day as the grand opening of the Visiting Nurse Association’s (VNA) assisted living project at 405 Alewife Brook Parkway in Somerville.

The two projects will offer the area’s senior and disabled residents the means to obtain housing and care previously available only in private senior communities.

When complete, Capen Court will provide 194 units of new affordable housing for an aging population that has few subsidized supportive and assisted-living alternatives.

"The Capen Court redevelopment represents the first time there’s been new affordable housing for seniors in Somerville in over 30 years," said Joe Macaluso, executive director of the Somerville Housing Authority. 

The continuing care community is the result of a partnership between the SHA and the Visiting Nurse Association, whose recently constructed 99-unit assisted living facility at Alewife Brook Parkway is adjacent to the SHA’s Capen Court site. Capen Court’s outmoded 64-unit, eight-building campus was razed in recent weeks to make way for the SHA’s modernized 95-unit three-story Capen senior building. 

Funding for the $25-million Capen Court project, at a time when public housing funds are scarce, was obtained through the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), the city of Somerville,  and a collaboration of public and private investors including the Massachusetts Housing Partnership, MassDevelopment, Bank of America, Century Bank and Boston Capital.

The redevelopment of Capen Court represents one of the first examples in which so-called "mixed financing" has been used to create a major overhaul of state public housing.