Seniors in the Tallahassee area and across the state are worried about paying for rent, gas and other needs, especially as fuel costs increase and rents continue to rise.

"That's been an ongoing problem," said Joyce Martinez, acting housing administrator for the city of Tallahassee . "Cost has been outpacing incomes for some time now."

Seniors often have to wait at least a year before they can get Section 8 housing through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said Greg Rice, the housing administrator for the Department of Elder Affairs.

"If they're on a fixed income, certainly their options are limited," he said.

A number of seniors at a local privately-owned affordable housing complex are feeling anxious now that their rents have increased.

Carolyn Saunders, 59, says her rent at Jamestown Woods Apartments is now $745 a month, or $830, including cable and washer/dryer fees. It used to cost $695 a month.

She's diabetic and has had to cut back on some of her medicines because she doesn't have enough money to pay for food, medicine and rent.

"I'm forced to pay it and cut somewhere," she said. "I'm going to stay and hope and pray I can get temp work or something."

Calls to the corporation that owns the apartments, the Massachusetts-based Gatehouse Companies, were not returned.

The 150-unit apartment complex Saunders lives in was built about six years ago and has a pool, a work-out room and other amenities. It caters to the 55 and older crowd, although the staff is allowed to lease about a fifth of their apartments to people under 55. The apartment rates are based on area median incomes, so when median incomes rise, so do the rates, said Jerad Yates, a communications analyst for the Florida Housing Finance Corp.

Jamestown Woods received a one-time subsidy through the corporation, and is required to base its rates on the area median income, which has increased from $58,200 in 2007 to $62,100 in 2008 for a family of four. However, most of the seniors who live at the complex are on fixed incomes, which don't increase even if the median income increases.

The apartment complex has received over $600,000 in tax credits through the Florida Housing and Finance Corporation's housing credit program. It also received about $1.1 million through the State Apartment Incentive Loan program, which provides low-interest rate loans to developers building affordable housing complexes, Yates said.

Jamestown Woods is the only senior apartment complex in Leon County enrolled in the housing credit program. Other senior complexes in town that offer affordable housing for seniors are affiliated with HUD.

"(Affordable housing) is a very big need in this community," said Michael Shotzberger, the administrator at HUD-affiliated Georgia Bell Dickinson Apartments in midtown Tallahassee . Shotzberger said there are at least four apartment complexes that offer affordable housing for seniors in Tallahassee . At Georgia Bell Dickinson, the rent increases once a year, but the increases are generally not more than $25 a month, he said.