CHATTANOOGA, Tenn \u2014 A new housing development in Chattanooga is getting close to completion, with a mission to make affordable living possible for people struggling with severe mental illness.<\/p>\n
The project, called Espero Chattanooga, is being built along East Main Street. Developers say the $21 million development will include 60 apartment units, with at least 19 reserved for individuals who are justice-involved or chronically homeless and living with serious mental illnesses.<\/p>\n
Those units are set aside for people earning about 30 percent of the area\u2019s median income \u2014 roughly $20,000 a year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.<\/p>\n
For people like Justina Fuget, who is on the Espero waitlist, the promise of affordable housing offers real hope.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a lot of us that\u2019s going to be paying extra rent starting next year,\u201d Fuget said. \u201cRight now, where I stay, it\u2019s going to go up to $898 for a one-bedroom. With me going to school and working, I feel like I\u2019ll be better off and afford the housing, because I\u2019d be able to pay my rent and still have money left over, instead of just spending the whole paycheck.<\/p>\n
The City of Chattanooga donated the land for the project.<\/p>\n
Construction on Espero Chattanooga is expected to wrap up by spring of next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHATTANOOGA, Tenn \u2014 A new housing development in Chattanooga is getting close to completion, with a mission to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-252198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}