With affordable housing for the workforce and low-income seniors a top priority in Collier County, the opening of Ekos Allegro in early October was a welcome sign that progress is being made.

The opening of the 160-unit apartment complex for fixed-income seniors was made possible by the first-ever loan from Collier Community Foundation’s Collier Housing Impact Investment Fund, which incentivizes the development of affordable housing. CCF’s loan of $1.3 million to Ekos Allegro developer McDowell Housing Partners to cover impact and utility connection fees meant that the opening would not be delayed another four to five months.

That was good news for Ekos Allegro residents — including Daniel Mullins and his wife, Cynthia, who had been waiting for housing since April.

Prior to their mid-October move-in date, Mullins and his wife had been in temporary housing situations, including at St. Matthew’s House, following a series of financial and health setbacks that included heart surgery for him.

In an interview the day after moving into Ekos Allegro, Mullins, a Vietnam veteran who served in Special Forces, said being able to rent an apartment in the complex makes him feel grateful to the organizations that worked together to make it possible.

“I think it’s a wonderful thing for the community, because Naples is so expensive to live if you don’t have a good job,” Mullins said. “I don’t know how people can survive here if you don’t have a really good job. It didn’t use to be that way, but it is now.”

The apartments at Ekos Allegro are restricted to those with income between 33% and 60% of area median income.

How the CCF Housing Impact Fund works

For the Ekos Allegro project, CCF worked with The Housing Alliance, Inc., an organization formed and funded by the foundation to be the “go-to resource for workforce, lower income and senior housing,” according to a press release announcing the loan. The CCF Collier Housing Impact Investment Fund will make shortterm, low-interest loans to nonprofit and for-profit developers committed to building affordable housing units who typically need gap funding during early or late stages of development.

Eileen Connolly-Keesler, CCF president and CEO, said the investment fund is currently at $5 million — all from donors — with a goal of $10 million to continue helping with the affordable housing crisis. She said the $1.3 million loan to McDowell Housing Partners was for one year at 3% interest.

She said the timing was right for this project to be the first to benefit from the CCF fund so that seniors could move into their new homes.

“In this project, they were moving forward and had just a few months before opening doors; they had apartments rented and ready to go and they were counting on a chunk of money from the county to pay down the impact fees, because they couldn’t move until the impact fees were paid,” Connolly-Keesler said in a phone interview. “But the county changed their mind on those dollars being used for that, so they would not have been able to open had we not stepped in. It was perfect for us to step in at that moment and be able to give them the loan so that the place could open, and seniors could move in. We had one case of somebody who was [living] in their car, I believe, that was waiting to get in.”

Michael Puchalla, CEO and executive director of The Housing Alliance, said the CCF loan made it possible for McDowell Housing Partners to pay the final impact fees, get utility connections in place and receive the temporary certificate of occupancy from Collier County so that Ekos Allegro residents could start moving into the complex — which is built to the highest hurricane standards — prior to the arrival of Hurricane Milton.

“There were a handful that were able to actually get moved in before [Hurricane] Milton, so we did have a handful of seniors that were able to be in their safe and secure setting,” Puchalla said in a phone interview. “The priority was on individuals that were not in stable housing situations at that point in time, so they prioritized those to get them moved in as quickly as possible.”