legislation. A housing authority may, with the approval of the department, acquire under the provisions of clause (d) of section eleven for the purposes of a project under this section or section thirty-five any land acquired by a city or town under the provisions of chapter three hundred and seventy-two of the acts of nineteen hundred and forty-six, as amended; provided, that such city or town has not completed construction of a housing project on such land. Each project developed under this section and section thirty-five shall be administered for occupancy in accordance with section thirty-two, except clause (c), and except that each such project shall be occupied, except as hereinafter provided by veterans and their families, and priority shall be given first to veterans of World War II of low income and to veterans of low income who have served in the active armed forces of the United States at any time between June the twenty-fifth, nineteen hundred and fifty and January the thirty-first, nineteen hundred and fifty-five, both dates inclusive; then to veterans of low income, such low income to be determined from time to time by the department; then to a person without regard to family status who is a veteran and who is fifty years of age or over; then to elderly persons qualifying for housing under the provisions of section forty; then, without regard to family status, to a person of low income who is permanently and totally disabled and eligible for assistance under chapter one hundred and eighteen A, or blind, then to other persons of low income living in substandard housing, and a housing authority may remodel or reconstruct parts of projects erected under this section to make the same available for occupancy by elderly persons qualifying for housing under the