Affordable housing complex for those with disabilities to come in Manatee

MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. — A new affordable housing complex will be replacing the old Budget Inn on Tamiami Trail in Manatee County.

The $31-million project aims to provide people with disabilities with not just housing but aid in other aspects of life with a first of its kind concept.

The hotel sits at Tamiami Trail and Braden Ave, near the Manatee-Sarasota County line. Manatee commissioners also are supplying more than a million dollars to the construction. 

For decades, Scott Eller has helped people with disabilities.

“I came to Sarasota to redevelop and transform people’s lives. It has enriched my life in ways I never could have imagined,” he said.

He’s the CEO of Community Assisted & Supported Living and is taking his passion a step further.

 “Right where this part of the building is going to get bulldozed, but there is going to be a four-story building in its place,” he said.

He’s replacing the old budget inn on Tamiami Trail in Manatee County and building a four-story affordable housing complex. It’ll house about 70 people with disabilities earning less than $35,000 dollars a year.

But, there is a twist.                                                                               

Not only will it provide housing but also employment for residents.

For example, they’ll be able to create and sell art like what you see here being made at Easter Seals of Southwest Florida, which is located nearby.

“The first floor will have amazing store fronts with that are going to be incredible businesses with a pottery shop, an art studio, a market, a coffee shop and other ventures here,” he said.

This is one of the apartments with CASL. Its interior is similar to what you can expect at the new place.

“We want to get people out of their apartments during the day doing things in the community. We want them to live just like everybody else,” he said.

He says there’s a larger need these days to help the disabled due to rent increases.

 “The apartment rent is more than double or two and a half times their income,” he said. “You are causing people to be homeless when they become homeless. That’s when other things occur.”

Eller says offering housing and employment resources has been extremely successful.

“We are seeing 90 percent of people thrive and they don’t return to the streets,” he said. “They don’t return to acute care systems jails, etc.”

Eller says the key is asking people what they need and what they want.

 “They want to feel like everybody else,” Eller said. “They want a nice place to live.”

After a business meeting in Europe, he came up with a vision for the piazza styled living space.

“The design is to where our folks become part of the community and the community becomes part of them,” he said.

Creating an environment for people with disabilities to live and work in the same space independently.

Some of the residents will come from Easter Seals of Southwest Florida which is located next to the Inn.