Ray Kuniansky may be a developer now, but to explain the barrier to building affordable senior housing, he draws on his past life as a math teacher. Each senior housing unit costs about $200K to build, he explains. But a one-bedroom rent for those who qualify for subsidized housing caps around $795 a month. With costs of $500 a month just to operate a unit, not including debt service, it is hard to make the arithmetic work out. The cost of building units isn't bound by what federal subsidies pay out and is, in fact, only rising. In sum, the numbers are looking direr and direr for those developers who want to break into senior housing that won't break the bank for residents. "People chuckle at me when I say that it's a math exercise ... but it really is. It's kind of that simple," said Kuniansky, the chief development officer at Atlanta-based Columbia Residential. 
Residential developers are trying to tackle the increased need for senior living, assisted living and other residential care targeted toward those 55 and older, especially as baby boomers age out of the workforce in droves as part of what has been dubbed the silver tsunami.But it is…  Read the full story here. | 
