'Fully affordable' Grove Apartment development opens in East Patchogue

A 55-unit, "fully affordable" rental development officially opened in East Patchogue on Thursday, joining a handful of affordable projects being built in the Town of Brookhaven to meet the growing need for housing.

The Grove Apartments, developed by Glen Cove-based Georgica Green Ventures, officially opened on Thursday at 400 E. Main St. after its residents moved in during the summer, said Allison Ekblom, vice president of development at Georgica Green Ventures.

The project is part of a broader plan to revitalize East Patchogue, which includes a proposed art center that was awarded $2 million in state funding in 2024, Newsday reported.

Of the 55 units at the Main St. complex, 38 were rented through a housing lottery last spring and another 17 were reserved as supportive housing for formerly homeless families, Newsday reported. The apartments are all reserved for those making up to 90% of the area median income.

“With the lack of affordable housing on Long Island, the Grove development plays a critical part in solving this problem locally,” the Village of Patchogue Mayor Paul Pontieri said in a statement.

The formerly homeless families will have access to services from the Levittown-based nonprofit New Ground, which has roughly 900 square feet of office space on the ground-floor of the development, Ekblom said. Three full-time New Ground social workers are on site to help families with financial literacy, employment and educational workshops, said Shannon Boyle, executive director of New Ground.

There’s a growing population of homeless Long Islanders who need housing, Boyle said. In Nassau and Suffolk county, the number of homeless residents living in shelters and those without shelter grew from 4,002 in 2024 to 4,540 in 2025, according to an annual count conducted every year in January. The number of homeless children under the age of 18 grew by 20% during that same period.

“Long Island's homeless are the working homeless. They have jobs, they're earning an income, but they just cannot afford market rent, because it's so expensive to live here,” Boyle said. At the Grove, New Ground will help Long Islanders “striving to be successful and to have a place to call home.”

Homelessness will likely grow on Long Island, Boyle said, as existing affordable housing buildings age, Long Island home prices rise, and the federal government looks to cut funds for permanent housing for the homeless.

A handful of other affordable developments in Brookhaven could help meet that demand. In April, a developer broke ground on a $40 million senior affordable and supportive housing project in Medford, Newsday reported. The state awarded $8.9 million in March to an affordable 53-unit development near Port Jefferson Station on the Long Island Rail Road, Newsday reported. And earlier this month, a lottery was held for a chance to purchase one of 16 condos at a development in Yaphank, Newsday reported.