Making Meals Sustainable - Forever

Last year, in the Fall of 2023, Seabury completed a $16M refinancing of Friendship Terrace, our historic 180-unit independent living community in the Tenleytown neighborhood of DC. The refinancing provided capital to update important infrastructure in the building and refresh common spaces like the hallways and community rooms. Now Friendship Terrace has an exercise room, a new roof along with solar panels, a new cooling tower, updated kitchen cabinets and appliances in the units, and is positioned to continue to be a safe, welcoming, comfortable place to live for decades to come.

As part of the refinancing, Friendship Terrace also converted 125 units from “deeply affordable based on market” to “deeply affordable based on income.” Combined with the previous 40 Section 8 property based vouchers, that means that 165 of 180 units will have residents paying no more than 30% of their income towards rent!

At a time when rent in the DC region has risen over 21% since May 2020, and seniors are the largest homeless population in the District, it’s critical that we focus on making housing more affordable and accessible for people who will predominantly be living on fixed incomes. Seabury is committed to being a senior affordable housing solution for our region’s moderate and low-income seniors. At Friendship Terrace, Seabury is working with the District’s Housing Authority to serve DC’s most vulnerable seniors.

However, that mission created another challenge. Friendship Terrace is a unique community where residents must opt into a dinner meal plan with an option to purchase lunch as well. While all residents have a kitchen in their unit, Seabury has prioritized that a healthy, filling meal be provided to residents no matter what ever since 1970. Not just to ensure residents were eating at least one good meal a day - but to encourage the community and the socializing that comes with eating together. 

But the meal plan can be cost burdensome to residents who are moving into Friendship Terrace to take advantage of the new deeply affordable housing. To make sure that Friendship Terrace can provide both deeply affordable housing AND deeply affordable meals, Seabury’s Board of Directors made the decision to seed a $3M Food Security Trust with $2M from the $16M refinancing of Friendship Terrace.

As a result, residents can receive subsidies to their meal plan on a sliding scale based on their income. With a new free food pantry as well, Seabury is making sure that good, healthy food is a guaranteed part of life at Friendship Terrace no matter your resources.

However, Seabury was only able to fund $2M of the $3M Food Security Trust as a one-time action from the refinancing. To make this resource permanently sustainable to Friendship Terrace residents, Seabury must raise $100k each year over the next 10 years to raise the last $1M. Once that happens, this Fund will be self-sustaining, supporting residents’ food needs with the interest from the Trust.

To make this a permanent resource, Seabury needs help. If you would like to make a meaningful gift to erase food insecurity at Friendship Terrace forever, please contact our Advancement Office at 202-849-8082 or giving@seaburyresources.org.