COEUR d'ALENE - Two weeks after the building with her name officially opens, Kathy Reed will retire.

St. Vincent de Paul, the nonprofit for which Reed worked for more than 20 years, plans to throw her a party March 16.

But before all that, the doors to the Kathy Reed home - the 37-unit recently-completed complex dedicated to house low-income seniors - must open.

On Tuesday, they will for good.

But Friday they swung open long enough for a sneak peak.

"Tears in my eyes," Reed said, touring the three-level home with friends, family and city officials during its soft opening. "I don't know what else to say, and to have it named after me is such an honor."

The opening came less than a year after St. Vincent de Paul broke ground off Neider Avenue, and less than two years after the nonprofit finished the Lynn Peterson Home for low-income seniors with disabilities, which sits a stone's throw from the Reed home.

Together, the buildings make a colorful, new neighborhood. Two years ago during the first groundbreaking ceremony it rained, and all that was there was dirt and mud.

It has been quite a transformation.

"To me it totally redefines the phrase low income," said Jeff Conroy, SVDP director. "It doesn't have to be shoddy."

Shoddy it isn't.

The three-level home offers artwork and historic North Idaho pictures on its walls, an exercise room, an arts and crafts room, even a poker table.

"When people hear the word low income they think deep-poverty" Conroy said. "This gives low income class and respect."

The home, like its neighbor, was a partnership success.

The roughly $6 million apartment was funded between the Idaho Housing Finance Association, Idaho Rural Development and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. It stands across from the roughly $3 million, 14-unit Peterson Home on the corner of Fruitland Street and Neider Avenue.

The Reed Home will rent to residents 62 years and older who earn 30 percent or less of the area medium income, or about $16,000 a year and below. Rent will be 30 percent of their incomes.

"This is gorgeous," said Chris Copstead, touring the facility. "It's a lot better than a lot of the places I lived in my younger days."

There is a demand for low-income senior housing. The waiting list to get in already has around 80 names on it.

St. Vincent's is working on creating more housing opportunities on Homestead Avenue.

"It's so beautiful," Reed said. "And it's so needed."