COEUR d'ALENE - Angela Barrett, her dog Boots, and her macaw Mira, have it good.

They didn't make the list.

Instead, they made the cut, one of the few to have a room in the 15-unit Lynn Peterson House dedicated to low-income people with disabilities.

The facility, operated through St. Vincent de Paul, has been a hit since it opened in early 2010, with a waiting list 27 people long. Only three people have left since it opened, so that on-deck list breaks down to around nine years for each standing in line.

And that waiting list may be getting trimmed.

On Wednesday morning, St. Vincent de Paul Director Jeff Conroy received a phone call notifying him the nonprofit won a $1.57 million U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant.

"Stoked," Conroy said of his reaction. "Pumped."

Now the largest homeless provider, with 300 units of housing for the underprivileged in the five northern counties, will do the Lynn Peterson Home all over again.

A nearly identical home for low-income people with disabilities should start going up at 102 Homestead Ave. in Coeur d'Alene next year.

"It really redefines low income," Conroy said. "It doesn't have to mean cheap and dirty, it means clean and respectable. Everyone deserves that."

The local provider was the only Idaho agency awarded.

Without the grant, the new home wouldn't happen, Conroy said. It's especially relieving because federal assistance is being cut across the board.

Yet the Frank Melville Supportive Housing Investment Act, which will fund $137 million in 92 projects across 35 states, passed earlier this year with bipartisan support.

A requirement of the grant is partnerships with other agencies, like the city of Coeur d'Alene, which owns the land on which the home will sit.

"It's a tribute to the folks in Coeur d'Alene and St. Vincent de Paul in particular," said Lee Jones, HUD spokesman. "It's never a surprise for us when St. Vincent de Paul wins a grant because they do such great work."

So in a year or two a waiting list may get whittled away.

It won't eradicate the need, but it can help more people like Barrett.

"For me, it's been wonderful," said the diagnosed schizophrenic, who moved in after bouncing from place to place, hotel room to hotel room. "It was new for one thing. And it was secure."

Barrett gardens for the home, growing organic vegetables.

She raises her pets there and the discipline of caring for her animals is like therapy. It grounds her. It keeps her focused.

"I might get distracted. I might step into an area I should not," she said. "I've been in bad places before. I choose to remain in a good spot.

Her next task is teaching Mira, the 4-year-old green winged scarlet macaw, how to fly from perch to perch this winter.

What would she tell those waiting?

"Welcome the opportunity because it's a chance from heaven," she said. "It actually is."