It will be expensive, but Mercer County Housing Authority will comply with new federal standards regarding handicapped-accessible housing.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is requiring the authority make at least 5 percent of each of its properties accessible to handicapped residents.

L. Dewitt Boosel, authority executive director, said in the early 1990s, HUD had set a requirement calling for 5 percent of overall units to be made handicapped-accessible.

The authority spent about a year converting 32 units "to satisfy some problems we had in various communities," Boosel said.