Introduction

I am a senior citizen who has been living in Lake county for the last several years, knocking around from the proverbial pillar to the selfsame post. My primary purpose in being out here is to help my daughter with two grandsons. She just went through a divorce and is now a single mom so she needs all the help she can get. I enjoy helping out, but housing has been an issue.

I have lived in about 8 different places since I moved to Lake county and this housing instability was getting very old and tiresome. I kept hearing about low cost housing options that were available because I was a low income senior but I resisted the thought of institutional housing for a long time.

Finally, I put myself on a waiting list after I had moved from a very nice house in Lake Forest to a nice basement hovel in Grayslake. I was just starting to get comfortable when I was told that I had to move. The landlord, who I really liked and got along well with had gotten a request from his son to move in since they had fallen on hard times. So after only a few months in Grayslake I had to move again.

I found a place in Buffalo Grove, another basement, but it was clean and decent and close to my daughter. Even though it cost too much, I could manage.

So here it is January '09 and I get a letter from the Lake County Housing authority. Your name has come up; there is a unit available, call this number. I had not expected my name to come up so quickly; I had been told one often spends five years on these waiting lists.

Long story short, I moved into my new digs the end of January. I had never moved in January before and hopefully never will again, but the rules said take it now or lose it, and it was an offer I couldn't refuse. Cheap rent for a decent place with my own kitchen, etc. Oh yeah!

So here I am in this building with 99 units, five floors all filled with folks over 55. It is a little community and practically as soon as I moved in the idea for this blog occurred to me. I could indulge both the writer and the photographer in me, and it would be a fun project. So here we go!