Meeting the Housing Needs of a Growing Active Adult Population

Meeting the Housing Needs of a Growing Active Adult Population.

The U.S. has been aware for some time now, that our population is aging. There has been intense debate about Medicare, Social Security, Emergency Services and the capacity of Medical Facilities, and perhaps most obvious, Housing.

Tennis courts at the active adult community of Sun Lakes, Arizona, in East Valley region of the Greater Phoenix area.

Active Adult communities are plentiful here in Arizona but the majority are on the pricey side. Affordable retirement communities are only beginning to crop up here and there, and not at an adequate rate.

As with the recent trend of the past few years, adult children returning to live at home, there is a noticeable movement toward blended families thanks to parents moving in with offspring and their families. In-law apartments, guest quarters and here in the Southwest, backyard casitas are more and more in demand. Indeed even builders have been getting on the bandwagon. It is not uncommon to find new construction homes with completely self-contained companion suites, both attached and detached.

There’s no denying the U.S. population is aging. In less than 20 years, one in three households will be headed by someone aged 65 or older, according to a recent report by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies—a finding that emphasizes the already-acute demand for accessible, affordable housing options.

Even more significant, according to the report, Projections and Implications for Housing a Growing Population: Older Adults 2015-2035: the 65-and-older population will expand from 48 million to 79 million by 2035, with 50 million acting as heads of households. Just 3.5 percent of existing homes feature assistive amenities such as widened entrances and level pathways. Moreover, much of the 65-and-older population will have the means to finance an aging-in-place lifestyle, aggravating demand.

Addressing the projected—and overwhelming—call for outfitted housing is essential, says Chris Herbert, managing director of the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.

“The housing implications of this surge in the older adult population are many, and call for innovative approaches to respond to growing need for housing that is affordable, accessible and linked to supportive services that will grow exponentially over the next two decades,” says Herbert.

Affordability will be most concerning to older low-income renters, according to the report, which projects that by 2035, 6.4 million older low-income renters will have to pay over 30 percent of their income for housing. Upwards of 7 million, however, will have access to federal rental subsidies, alleviating the strain—though only to a certain extent.

“Today…we only serve one-third of those who qualify for assistance,” says Jennifer Molinsky, lead author of the report and senior research associate at the Joint Center. “Just continuing at this rate—which would be a stretch—would leave 4.9 million people to find affordable housing in the private market.”

With lacking housing supply a crisis-level issue across generations, addressing the specific needs of the older population will necessitate cooperation between several constituents, the report concludes.

“Right now, more than 19 million older adults live in unaffordable or inadequate housing, and that problem will only grow worse in the next two decades as our population ages,” says Lisa Marsh Ryerson, president of AARP Foundation, which provided funding for the report. “This important follow-up study to Harvard’s ground-breaking 2014 report on housing America’s older adults not only calls attention to important trends but also helps point to the kind of solutions—requiring cross-sector collaboration between the housing industry, policymakers, and public, private and philanthropic organizations—that will fulfill older adults’ ardent desire to continue living independently at home with security and dignity.”

Sixty-one percent of those surveyed in a recent HomeAdvisor report say they plan to stay in their home “indefinitely” as they age.

For more information, Call or Text: 602-999-0952
eMail: golfarizona@cox.net
Bill Salvatore / Arizona Elite Properties
Residential Sales, Marketing, and Property Management

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