Hilltop

It is just low income senior housing. The price is right and cleaning crews are great. Talk to residents before signing a lease. There is a big problem with un-addressed bullying. If it happens victims get relocated within the building....new leases...the cost of moving...possible higher rent. The bully gets another talking to that makes no difference....Most residents stay to themselves most of the time...Community is an iffy thing here much of the time...I wish that was different... I'd love to give the highest points available. If the bullying is ever effectively addressed I will. I am sad at them about this, not mad...

Awesome don't listen to any bad reports

I have lived here for about five years. The rent I have entered is nominal. Rent for most residents is based on income. I have rated care services as fair because this is an independent living facility. Care services as is usually understood are not available from Hilltop House. Many do get help independently. Dinner is served 7 days a week and is an optional expense. It is a good way to meet your neighbors. The people living here represent a broad range of experiences. Many you might not expect to find in low income housing for seniors. It ranges from sad to amazing. For example I discovered that a person I had known for a long time spent much of her youth in a Displaced Persons Camp in Europe after World War II. Another was employed as a translator for Boeing and has traveled extensively. Another walked most of Camino Real - twice! since coming here. Another was an activist in the Seattle Black Panther movement and played and taught marimba. One plays four instruments and performs. Another is fluent in four languages. The location is ideal; it is a short walk to downtown and all it has to offer, is close to the region's premier health services, churches, restaurants, four bus routes, the streetcar and the Frye Museum. The entire building has been totally remodeled ; new appliances, new bathrooms, carpet, cabinets - everything was replaced. These amenities may draw you here but it is the people that make it a welcoming community. It is the friendships you will make that will keep you here. Activities are too many to mention and if you want to start one you will find support. The Residents' Council earns money by operating the 'little store.' It is a place where you can get essentials and not so essentials, from paper towels to candy bars and artisan bread. Also they sell donated things of all kinds. That money goes into the treasury and the council uses it to support activities of value to the residents. The support is modest and often supplemented by donations. If you are looking for a place to live, to be alive this is that place. And I and some 100+ others look forward to meeting you!

There were three issues from April 2012 to April 2013 when I went in April 2012 I signed a 12 month lease for a certain amount of money, within 2 weeks of being there HUD came down with the ruling that they could charge more rent and the administrator of this decided that I had to pay the higher price even though the lease was signed before the ruling from HUD came down. I objected and it took me about six weeks to straighten this out and the only way that I could do this was to go to the fraud and abuse hotline for HUD and they gave me an email address and a case number and I emailed. The administrator referred me to HUD saying that they told her she could charge more money, and the guy at HUD never did and, in fact the first time I talked to him, he said, that she just didn't understand and he’d call her and straighten it out and he never called me back. after 3 calls to him I never heard anything and that is when I sent my email. Within three weeks of my submitting my email he retired. He was the project manager there and the new project manager is the one who straightened it out. But the administrator, she kept insisting. They tried to cheat me and it was consciously done, she didn’t misunderstand anything, she was adamant and arrogant about it. The second issue is the maintenance people, it’s a very old building fifties and sixties vintage, it needs a lot of work, and there are two maintenance people Monday through Friday 9-5, that float around the building doing all the different things that need to be done. They would come by your room and knock on the door and wanted in whether you were in the shower or napping or anything like that it didn’t seem to matter. The privacy is lacking in the place. If you deny them, like one time, it was something that didn’t need to be done I had been after them to do for like a month to do it and I just said no I’m sleeping, it was like 3 in the afternoon or something, and I got a notice within a few days quoting the lease saying “for necessary repairs”, it wasn’t “necessary” they hadn’t been doing it, and to get a note if you don’t let them in and there’s no warning, and it irritated me that I didn’t have my privacy for the year that I was there. I stayed because the first two weeks I was there, I liked the little apartment in there I had and I had bought a little less than two thousand dollars of furniture the first two weeks I was there, a bed, T.V, stereo things like that, and I wanted to get some use out of it and the other thing was the security deposit. I was convinced that this administrator, who I am convinced was dishonest, basically, would take my security deposit if I left before the twelve months was up, and it was a decent neighborhood and everything, it wasn’t that bad. The third thing is the people in this place are very old you have to be 62 to go in there and I was 69 at the time, and they are 80 or 90 for the most part and also mostly welfare people, section 8, and I never knew that until I spoke with the HUD person. There are 125 units in the building and I would guess at least 50 percent are section 8, but I’m one of the other folks that are not any type of section 8 or any of that. My original on the lease I was supposed to be 836 a month and what she wanted me to pay after two weeks, was 47 dollars more a month. After twelve months I could see, wait out the term of the lease at least. There are a lot of disabled people, both mentally and physically and elderly, so 62, seems to be too young for the place I was too young for the place, I didn't fit in. Maybe they should be more assisted living. She was doing this to more than me. I got a notice a week after the HUD people called her and told her to desist with the raising the rent I got a letter and I noticed about 6-8 other people got letters. When you go in there, this is twelve month lease and then you go to month to month and she was treating everyone as if they were a month to month tenant.