Hard hats and hi vis jackets are obligatory at Jewish Blind & Disabled’s Bushey property as JBD chief executive Hazel Kaye receives a first-hand update on the progress of the second phase of the site’s development.
Guided by a construction team leader, she comments admiringly on how the building is taking shape, highlighting features such as a roof terrace and rooms with some pleasingly bucolic views. “Every time I come here, it’s amazing how things have moved on.”
One of the final elements of the £6.7 million second phase will be a walkway linking the new building to the existing one, which is home to 60 tenants.
Construction work is expected to be completed around October and interviews with prospective tenants for the 19 flats — four of them two bedroom — will begin in autumn.
They will all be occupied by next summer and a formal opening will be part of the celebrations of JBD’s 50th anniversary.
“We are the only Jewish organisation providing specialist mobility apartments for people aged 18 to 100 with 24/7 support,” Ms Kaye pointed out. “Everything they need to live independently.”
For example, “there are lights around switches and slightly higher sockets on the walls. Everything is accessible, whatever someone’s disability.”
The JBD properties also feature strictly kosher communal areas where tenants can socialise.
JBD currently houses 360 people in 297 apartments. Its seven properties are in North and East London, Essex and Hertfordshire. Recent arrivals have moved from as far afield as Cambridge and the Midlands and Ms Kaye reported a waiting list of 40 specifically for the new building — “and this will increase significantly as we start promoting it.
“We have a points system based on need and we will have to make some difficult decisions.
“One of the most difficult things is telling people we cannot accommodate them. We know from our tenants that people want to live within a Jewish cultural environment.”
Ms Kaye estimated that the general waiting list would exceed 60 after the Bushey places were filled.
Virtually all the money for the latest project has been raised and the appointment of Sara Glaser, formerly with Langdon, as full-time fundraiser is indicative of JBD’s desire to build its donor base to help meet growing demand for its services.
The charity is actively looking for further properties in the Hertfordshire suburbs or Barnet which meet the JBD criteria — not on a steep gradient but close to transport links, shops and Jewish amenities. “The challenge is that we are up against commercial developers.”
A new project can require an outlay upwards of £17 million and Ms Kaye is hopeful of a major windfall from its 50th anniversary dinner next year. “It is important we let the community know why we are so special.”
