Where Have All the ‘Old Folks’ Gone?

Here is a challenge: Name five places in your community where “old folks” can be found. I’ll give you a minute. OK. What did you come up with? Depending on how old you are, you may have no idea or you may have easily compiled a list.

Where Have All the Old Folks Gone?

Since the early 1960’s, Americans have seen changes to neighborhoods that once housed multiple generations. Where once Nona or Bubbe watched the kids after school, made the family meals, and lived with everybody either in the same home or in the neighbor, now it has become fashionable to move away.

This trend has its roots back in the early 1960s. It was during these years that the notion of housing aging adults separately from younger people really took off. Real estate developers like Del Webb bought up acres of land, built 2B/2Ba homes with a two-car garage, small yards, and marketed these developments with the guarantee of golf, tennis, clubhouses and no grandchildren.

Today this has become an unquestioned sociologic segregation of aging adults. Where once they had purpose and place across the lifespan, older adults are now expected to move into some form of congregate living, either in 55+ communities, continuing care communities, or, God forbid, long-term care.

What Kind of Housing is Available for Older Adults?

In the United States, housing for aging adults falls into three distinct categories for those who have financial resources: single family dwellings or condos, assisted living and/or lifecare facilities, and long-term care. If you don’t have financial resources, your choices are limited: single-occupancy hotels, low-income Senior housing, (Section 8 vouchers), or being unhoused.

Access to and availability of each of these types of housing varies depending on policy, budget, rules, regulations and laws within and between local communities, state governments, and the federal government. This is not news to any of you reading this. It is not, however, limited to the United States.

Why Are Older Adults Experiencing Rising Rates of Homelessness?

According to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, housing should be considered a right that involves “living somewhere in security, peace and dignity.” And, it should be available to “all persons irrespective of income or access to economic resources.” And yet, we see unhoused elders around the world.

What are the barriers to housing? Remarkably, it is not supply. There is actually plenty of space; it is just not adapted to the specific needs of aging adults. Here are some key needs for aging adults: safe neighborhoods, accessibility to transportation (public or private), mobility (lighting, wide doors/hallways, ramps or assisted lifts instead of stairs). Oh, and affordability.

What Does this Mean for Your Community?

Different groups around the country have compiled recommended standards that can be used as a conversation starter for community-based groups or government committees tasked with identifying and creating adequate housing in your community. Check out AARP Livable Communities, where you can look up quality of life measures for where you live and see how your compare with other places. You can also look at some groups working on solving housing and livability problems at 8 80 Cities (that extra space is intentional), and Casita Coalition, who are working on breaking down barriers for building and ownership of ADUs.

Diving Deeper: A Look at Some Solvable Issues around Housing

We know what the problems are and we know what the solutions are. We just haven’t figured out how to get rid of the barriers to implementing those solutions. Here are five barriers that are currently being taken down with varied success around the country.

Sufficient supply of housing

As noted about, there actually are plenty of housing units across all levels of need (e.g., independent, assisted, supported, and skilled, memory care) that can be found in a given community. The barrier is converting them. Just counting homes and/or units does not address the fluid nature of population growth and change.

Baby Boomers are already filling assisted living and skilled nursing beds, and will be occupying them for the next 20-30 years. But when we finally do die off, there will be lots of empty units and beds. Planning now for that ebb tide after we pass is essential for the economic stability of a community. For example, all those houses built in Sun City, and The Villages, and other 55+ communities around the country will be on the market with no buyers. Planning for that eventuality will insure adequate sustainability and tax bases.

Laws in place to protect both renters and owners

Laws take time to write, get passed and then implement. Current systems of arbitration favor landlords over renters, yet there are more and more renters who need recourse. We have seen this played out after this past year of disasters where rental units across the country were lost to floods, fires, hurricanes, and earthquakes. This has contributed to the number of unhoused aging adults.

Access to Fair Systems of Arbitration

Finding ways to make housing equitable and financially viable for both renters and owners is essential to the economic stability of all communities.

Financial Resourcing

Financing housing start-ups needs more assistance and creative lending by both public and private resources. The current political climate is NOT conducive to stable investment by lenders, nor is there consensus at the state or federal level with our elected officials. Local communities need to invest locally, but can and should take advantage of financing and funding from around the country. These are long-term, big picture items that take leadership in partnership with well-informed community members.

Accomplishing this will require public/private partnerships at the local level, as the needs of communities vary. The bottom line needs to be affordable housing that will create stable economic growth, not elder ghettos and long-term warehousing of frail elders.

Qualified Workers for Maintenance and Upkeep

There needs to be sufficient numbers of workers who can build, maintain, and adapt housing to meet the changing needs of older adults. Skilled workers in all vocational trades are needed not just in the building of units. Adequate pay for these services is also needed. The outcome of this two-pronged collaboration is younger workers being able to afford to live in the community they work in.

Living in an ‘Elder-Friendly Community’

Housing is only one aspect of living in an elder-friendly community. Having older adults as part of the fabric of a neighborhood or town instead of housing them out of sight in some elder ghetto represents a return to how things used to be. I am not being nostalgic here. I am pointing out that if elders are seen and valued, the community itself benefits. And that is a good thing for everybody.