Elder Orphans: Housing
As the proportion of elderly people increases, sufficient housing is becoming a pressing issue, especially for those who live alone.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
When I was growing up in a small rural community in Indiana, I never appreciated the advantages that such a setting provided to senior citizens. As I’ve previously written, my mother dragged me along when she visited “shut-ins” (an awful, if descriptive, term).
As I’ve come to realize, the real advantage of that small community is that people would not simply fall through the cracks unnoticed. People of all ages and financial circumstances participated in our two churches and other organizations. We all knew one another very well in most instances.
As a teenager, I resented that kind of social interaction because I had no privacy. For example, we had a party-line phone system, meaning that several homes shared the same phone line. You knew to answer your phone when a distinctive ring sounded (such as “three shorts and a long”). Distressingly, every time I called a girl to arrange a date, someone on my shared line or hers could pick up their receiver and listen to every word. We became experts at talking in code!
Today, most of us don’t live in small villages. Elder orphans (senior citizens living alone without family or friends’ support) face difficult housing challenges, especially if they must exist on small, limited income. These challenges involve access to affordable housing and the social isolation that living alone brings.
Affordability and Accessibility
As of 2022, over 10 million households headed by a person 65 and over are cost-burdened (paying more than one-third of their income on housing). Half of this group pay more than 50% of their income. These numbers will grow as the Boomer generation continues to age. Further, the Census Bureau projects that by 2035, those 80 and over will increase to 24 million – double the number in 2016.
The cost of nursing home or assisted living arrangements is already out of reach for many elderly persons. Those who try to age in place in their homes increasingly need more community services even if they can still pay ever higher property taxes and utilities.
Elderly individuals were hit hard by the foreclosure crisis during the pandemic, and many now rent. This is especially unfortunate at a time when number of available rental units is declining and pricing is rapidly rising.
Alarmingly, only 36% of income-eligible older adults receive federal housing assistance due primarily to lack of funding. Without significant expansion of rental assistance, the homelessness among the elderly will become a major crisis.[i]
Accessibility — in the sense of features such as no-step entry, single-floor living, hallways and doorways that accommodate wheelchairs, and bathroom and kitchen modifications — is also in short supply. When one considers the need for transportation alternatives, safe streets, availability of food stores, and expanding need for access to broadband (for telemedicine and other purposes), accessibility becomes a major consideration.
Federal housing support for seniors and persons with disabilities is available for housing developers (not individuals) through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (Sections 202 and 811).
Cost-burdened seniors and persons with disabilities can obtain a “Housing Choice Voucher” to help with rental costs. The amount of each voucher is determined by location and availability of funds. Applications must be made through an individual’s local housing authority. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funds the vouchers through Section 8. The National Coalition on Aging (NCOA) provides a good summary of this program.
All these challenges regarding affordability and accessibility become more acute in rural areas.
As the aging population increases, more seniors will struggle to afford either a home of their choice or the care that they need. This situation is expressed as an alternative because only declining number of seniors will be able to afford both. This is especially true because the need for government housing assistance for seniors far outstrips available funding.[ii]
ALARM! Widely reported plans by the Trump administration to curtail or eliminate Medicaid, which includes important supports for the elderly (such as nursing home services), threaten to turn housing needs for cost-burdened elderly into a program featuring increasing illness and early death.
Social Isolation and Loneliness
As I’ve previously written, social isolation and feelings of loneliness are major problems for elder orphans. Obviously, housing is a crucial factor in causing these issues and, perhaps, in resolving them.
Most people are somewhat familiar with housing for senior citizens in retirement homes, assisted living, and skilled care facilities.
Retirement homes generally offer private apartments or stand-alone units that feature common recreational and meeting spaces and communal dining if desired or needed. Other features might include exercise equipment, paid staff to organize recreational activities, and other amenities such as swimming pools, meeting rooms, and guest apartments for visiting relatives.
Assisted living and skilled care facilities offer varying levels of daily living and healthcare services on site. Nevertheless, social interaction is typically limited to other seniors and paid staff.
In all these options, social interaction occurs primarily among elderly persons with limited interaction between seniors and younger paid staff (servers, cleaning personnel, nursing staff, social organizers, etc.). Except for family visits, there is little to no interaction with young children.
Contact between seniors and younger people, including children, is vital for the health and well-being of all concerned. Seniors, especially elder orphans, benefit immensely from the vitality, optimism, and joy that younger people contribute. And by telling stories based on their experience and providing guidance or mentoring to younger people, seniors can recover purpose in their lives and help others at the same time. Those relationships are truly win-win!
Village Model Living
Village model living is one approach to increasing intergenerational relationships and helping some seniors live longer and better independently.
The movement for village living began about 25 years ago as an alternative for seniors who recognized the need for support but who didn’t want to rely on retirement communities and assisted living facilities. These people wanted to age independently in their own communities while reducing social isolation and gaining minimal support for daily living activities.[i]
A village in this sense is a neighborhood or group of neighborhoods in which residents link with one another to provide a network of volunteer and paid services. Typically, they appoint or hire a coordinator who schedules volunteers to take residents shopping or for medical care. They also band together to contract for services at a lower rate from local plumbers, electricians, housekeepers, health and wellness services, and other vendors.
In addition, the group arranges social events such as lunches, dinners, parties, discussion groups, museum trips, meditation, and educational opportunities – all depending on members’ interests.
Villages usually have a board of directors elected by resident members. The board is responsible for retaining a coordinator or director and for contracting with any services. The board also oversees the organization’s finances.
Until recently, villages took care of expenses through membership dues. Individual memberships still run from $500 to $1,000 per year for most villages. As the need for paid services has increased, however, most villages have entered the non-profit fundraising market. This allows them to solicit donations from individuals and businesses and to apply for government support.
A major challenge to the growth of this model is the need to achieve ethnic and class diversity. In 2022, 96% of village members were white, and 74% reported household annual income of $50,000 or more. Further, 71% of members are women, and 55% of all members live alone.
Although a few village organizations have recruited families who shelter foster children (thereby improving the intergenerational experience for both children and seniors), there’s still a long way to go to make the village model a more viable alternative for many seniors. Meeting that challenge will likely require a higher level of government support which is unlikely until the political climate changes.[ii]
Except for lack of racial diversity, the small town where I grew up provided all the advantages of the village model of housing. In a population of 300, people knew one another. They cared for one another and took care of the elderly among them. It wasn’t perfect, but it provided a friendly, secure environment for most people.
Public Policy Note:
Current illegal and unconstitutional attempts by the Trump administration to cut public services by fiat, including Medicare and Medicaid (among other sources), will devastate our elderly population.
For seniors who depend upon Social Security for most of their income and who must meet ever higher costs for rent, mortgages, property taxes, food, and health care, the reduction or elimination of public support will mean increased illness and earlier death.
Seniors, including Boomers who are entering their 80s, must lead the way in resisting these cuts and actually increasing funding to levels that are truly needed. More than most age groups, seniors vote. And many have the time, knowledge, and energy to become politically active. They now need to act in their own interest and that of society generally.
Main Takeaways
Housing is a major challenge for senior citizens, especially for those who are cost-burdened.
Current levels of public support for housing are inadequate to meet the need.
Senior citizen housing, including assisted living facilities and retirement homes, do not prevent social isolation and feelings of loneliness.
The village model of housing for seniors opens an alternative approach to meeting some, but not all, of these challenges.
The current administration’s intention to cut or eliminate public support for services to the elderly (among others) must be thwarted.
NOTES
[i] Helpful Village, “What is the Village Movement?” https://www.helpfulvillage.com/the-village-movement.
[ii] Graham, Carrie, and Shannon Guzman. The Village Model: Current Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities. Washington, DC: AARP Public Policy Institute, October 2022. https://doi.org/10.26419/ppi.00169.001
[i] Jennifer Molinsky, “Housing for America’s Older Adults: Four Problems We Must Address,” Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, 18 August 2022, https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/housing-americas-older-adults-four-problems-we-must-address.
[ii] N.A., “As the Older Adult Population Soars, US Is Unprepared to Provide Housing and Care for Millions of People,” Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, 30 November 2023, https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/press-releases/older-adult-population-soars-us-unprepared-provide-housing-and-care-millions-people.