Seniors Housing & Healthcare Trends

MELBOURNE: Longer lifespans, evolving household structures, and growing care needs are changing what people need from their homes and communities. In this Under the Lens series, Shelterforce examines what it means to live in an aging society, how families are adapting to the realities of growing older, and the housing policies and solutions that can help support aging safely, affordably, and connected to one another.

When Kahrynn Aaliyah first came across a Craigslist ad for the Nathalie Salmon House—a 53-unit affordable housing building in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood—she had no idea she would form a bond that transcended language and generations.

During a tour of the building, a guide pointed out a unit rented by Olga Bashkina, a retired concert pianist from St. Petersburg, Russia. As a fellow musician, Aaliyah, 24, immediately knew she wanted to meet Bashkina.

After settling in for a few weeks, Aaliyah received a knock on her door while she was rehearsing a song. It was Bashkina, who told Aaliyah that her voice was beautiful and that she wanted to play the piano for her sometime. It sparked a neighborly bond between the two—despite Aaliyah knowing only a few words in Russian and being decades younger than Bashkina.

“Music is how we talk,” Aaliyah explains. “If we play a song, we both understand the sounds of the song, but if we try to speak [different] languages, we don’t really understand each other.”

Aaliyah and Bashkina’s sonically inclined friendship was made possible by living in an intentional intergenerational housing community, a housing model that’s still relatively rare. According to the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, there are roughly 160 of these types of housing communities in the U.S.

Intergenerational housing includes multigenerational arrangements in which two or more generations, often from the same family, live under one roof. This type of housing is becoming more popular after falling out of style in the 1950s, when the nuclear family took hold.

Intentional intergenerational living “includes communities designed to bring people of different generations together, whether they live in the same home, [in] separate homes within the same development, or in colocated settings that intentionally foster interaction,” according to Sheri Steinig, the director of strategic initiatives and communications at Generations United, whose mission is to determine what systems are needed to bring older and younger people together.

“One distinction we often make is that most multigenerational households arise organically within families rather than being intentionally developed, whereas intentional intergenerational housing or communities are specifically designed to encourage meaningful interaction across generations,” Steinig adds.

“For researchers, multigenerational living is defined less by co-residence than by proximity and shared resources,” writes A. Krista Sykes for the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. “Relatives living in an accessory dwelling unit or a nearby home may therefore be included. Intergenerational arrangements, however, take a wider range of forms, including students renting bedrooms in older adults’ homes, older adults living on college campuses, and residents occupying individual units within cohousing developments.”

Steinig attributes the rising interest in intergenerational living arrangements to the housing shortage and affordability crisis. She says this type of housing is often tied to school, when younger adults might need a room only for one semester.

“We’ve seen universities and college partnerships that are doing this, where they’re trying to provide some other housing opportunities for students by matching and pairing them with older adults who have rooms in their homes,” Steinig says. These leases may come with certain agreements, such as the student helping take out the trash or handle other household chores.

Housing Opportunities and Maintenance for the Elderly (H.O.M.E)—which operates the building in which the musical intergenerational resides—has designated responsibilities for younger tenants in exchange for reduced rent. Young, single residents take on the role of resident assistant, or RA.

Gail Schechter, H.O.M.E’s executive director, makes it clear that these RAs are not taking on assisted-living tasks. “ This is not a nursing home,” she says. “This is not any medical model. This is regular, independent housing.”

Instead, RA duties include cooking two meals on the weekend for older residents—there’s a hired chef Monday through Friday—and carrying an on-duty phone once every few weeks in case of emergencies such as a fire or a health issue. H.O.M.E.’s five-story Nathalie Salmon Home, which opened in 1994, houses more than 43 seniors aged 62 and older (or 55 and older with a disability), 6 RAs, and 4 families with minor children. Its three-story Pat Crowley House opened in 1983 and accommodates 12 seniors, 4 RAs, and 1 family with minor children.

This is not a nursing home … This is not any medical model. This is regular, independent housing.”
Gail Schechter, executive director of H.O.M.E.

Because these relatively simple tasks involve older adult residents, things can sometimes get a bit more complicated. For example, Kim de Graaf, a 45-year-old RA at the Pat Crowley House, is mindful of various dietary restrictions when meal-prepping. Some of de Graaf’s older neighbors can’t eat dairy, some can’t have beef, and others have unique needs due to their diabetes diagnosis or lack of teeth.

De Graaf is also mindful of bringing up “depressing” topics when conversing with the older folks. Many of them have lost their parents or don’t have a relationship with their children, so holidays like Mother’s Day or Father’s Day can be difficult topics.

He primarily works cleaning gigs outside of RA duties and says the reduced rent helps him financially because “housing is not cheap in Chicago, especially [on] the North Side. We’re in a very nice area.” According to Zillow Rentals data, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Chicago is $1,900 as of August 2026, whereas RAs pay $500 a month for a studio apartment.

De Graaf has lived in the city for only two years. He came across the Pat Crowley House while looking for volunteer opportunities to work with older adults. He took on some shifts cleaning up after meals, found it a friendly environment, and signed on to live there as an RA.

“[It’s] nice for me because I don’t really know too many people in Chicago, so [I] get to interact with some of the people here,” he says.

He’s attended ice cream socials, holiday gift exchanges, and film screenings with his senior neighbors. One particularly memorable outing was seeing The Rocky Horror Picture Show with a few older adults at Chicago’s Music Box Theatre. One older adult had seen the film when it first came out, and de Graaf enjoyed hearing her perspective on it decades later.

Aaliyah, the singing tenant, is another RA. She balances that along with other gig work, which mostly consists of acting roles these days. Aaliyah says the age diversity at the Nathalie Salmon House brings a variety of perspectives into her life that she feels she wouldn’t otherwise get.

“As a young person, it’s easy to get caught up in, ‘I gotta do everything now—I gotta rush to this, I gotta rush to that,’” she says. She sees beauty in the slower pace of her older neighbors’ lives. Plus, these neighbors have more life experience, so conversing with them offers an opportunity to get advice or broaden her worldview.

While Aaliyah and de Graaf both enjoy renting as RAs in these intentional intergenerational communities, things aren’t always rainbows and butterflies. As with any living situation, these groups face unique challenges. In retirement, the seniors are less busy and can sometimes get gossipy, de Graaf says, so he is mindful about what personal information he shares.

Being around older individuals with specific social needs all the time can sometimes wear him out, he says.

“I try to be aware of that just for my own health,” he says. “If I feel like something’s not going right or my needs are not being met, I have to take a step back and think about my priorities.”

While he likes volunteering at the Pat Crowley House, there’s “definitely a timeline” to his residence there. “I don’t plan on being here [for] more than two or three years,” he says.

Beyond personal issues, there are also structural issues that arise in these types of living arrangements. Schechter says that coordinating communal mealtimes can often be tricky, since older adults tend to eat earlier. Another structural issue is the many staffing needs, which can get expensive for nonprofits.

That expense can sometimes be alleviated by involving tenants more in the management process.

“We’ve seen a lot of success when there’s some type of tenant council that is made up of people of different generations [who] can really help provide feedback both to the operations and programming side of things, as well as coordinating resident-driven activities and plans,” Steinig mentions.

H.O.M.E has a community advisory council, which is comprised of seniors who’ve been served by H.O.M.E. This includes tenants as well as homeowners who’ve received repairs through the organization. “They’re helping with policy advocacy, feedback on our programs, and senior outreach,” Schechter says.

H.O.M.E also benefits from partnerships with nursing and social work schools. Students studying gerontology or occupational therapy may stop by to take seniors’ blood pressure or lead a chair yoga session. Volunteer chefs also help with meals occasionally.

Older residents at the Pat Crowley House and the Nathalie Salmon Home can live in private apartments or in Good Life Senior Residences, which have private bedrooms but communal kitchens, dining rooms, living areas, bathrooms, laundry facilities, and outdoor spaces. The larger Nathalie Salmon Home also has a fitness area. Families have two- or three-bedroom apartments.

The cost of a regular private apartment for seniors is 30 percent of their incomes—most fall within the 30 to 50 percent area median income range. For those in the Good Life Senior Residence, it’s 75 percent of their income. That usually comes to about $700 to $1,000 a month.

One intergenerational issue that H.O.M.E solved was that some older adults viewed RAs as freeloaders. Previously, RAs received free room and board for the duties previously listed, plus additional tasks, such as cleaning an older adult’s unit. Tensions arose because seniors saw themselves as paying renters and viewed RAs more as staff.

H.O.M.E switched to a monthly rent with fewer RA duties, which Schechter says lessened the conflict.

In Tampa, Florida, at another intentional intergenerational affordable housing program called New Life Village, things operate a little differently. Instead of young people taking on more neighborly responsibilities, the older adults do.

While all adult residents of New Life Village have a service commitment, residents over the age of 45 without children in the home are required to take on a “double duty” version of it.

“You’ve heard the expression [that] it takes a village to raise a child. Our seniors are pretty much the secret sauce to that,” says Mariah Hayden, the executive director of New Life Village, which was founded in 2008. The organization’s goal is to keep children out of the foster system. Outside of New Life Village’s senior population, the other population that qualifies for housing is families that have adopted or foster children, or kinship families, where a child is taken in by relatives.

You’ve heard the expression [that] it takes a village to raise a child. Our seniors are pretty much the secret sauce to that.”
Mariah Hayden, executive director of New Life Village

Single seniors must attend two community events each month and separately help out with another two additional events, which might include giving out popcorn at a movie night or assisting an art instructor during an art therapy class. These older adults are also required to help a neighbor twice a month, with tasks such as babysitting, tutoring, or picking up items at the grocery store.

Hayden says the kids gain a lot of “generational knowledge” from their senior neighbors, who are active members of the community.

“A lot of our kids don’t have stable grandparents in their lives, and now they’ve got many in the village,” she adds.

Once a quarter, the older residents must also participate in one or two educational activities.

The monthly service commitment usually takes about 6 to 10 hours, but many older adults go well beyond that. “They take every opportunity they can to go to events and be involved with the neighbors,” Hayden says.

One tension Hayden has noticed is the generational divide over technology. “Some of the younger kids might have an inclination to stay inside and be on video games or on their phones a lot, whereas seniors want to connect, talk, and be more community-oriented,” she says.

Many affordable senior housing programs don’t allow children, which makes New Life Village and H.O.M.E special because they’re open to “grandfamilies”—families in which a grandparent or older relative is raising children.

Regulatory challenges are one barrier to the wider adoption of intergenerational housing. Residents at the Nathalie Salmon House share a kitchen and dining room, but “now with all of these different regulations—especially low-income housing tax credit and all that—even [single-room occupancies] have to have their own kitchens and bathrooms,” Schechter says.

These regulations don’t affect H.O.M.E’s current buildings, “but they are definitely preventing us from doing new development,” says Schechter.

Both Schechter and Steinig say that dedicated spaces for interaction are essential to intergenerational communities. Being intentional when planning the physical spaces is important, too. One program that Generation United works with in New York City decided to put its laundry space on the top floor, which connects to a rooftop garden.

“There’s some opportunity to engage with other people versus just going down into the basement where nobody wants to hang out,” Steinig says.

A place that’s good for a wheelchair or a walker is also good for a stroller.”
Sheri Steinig, director of strategic initiatives and communications at Generations United

She also points to Bridge Meadows in Portland, Oregon, where older adults and families live in slightly separated spaces. Seniors’ apartments overlook the playground, but they don’t have noisy kids running up and down their hallway.

Universal age-friendly design standards are also the way to go.

“A place that’s good for a wheelchair or a walker is also good for a stroller,” Steinig says.

While there are, of course, intergenerational living situations that don’t work out, Steinig has seen many evolve into much longer family-like relationships, even if they only lived together for short periods, such as a one-year lease.

When people move away and start their own families, “the older adults they lived with may become surrogate grandparent-like figures,” Steinig says. Or they continue to include their older, unrelated housemate or neighbor in family events.

She says intergenerational housing fosters real connections and opportunities to share care and services across generations. Intentional intergenerational communities often schedule opportunities for interaction, such as potlucks or activity clubs. These events build relationships, making neighbors more comfortable asking one another for help—even with small requests such as pet-sitting or picking up a prescription at the pharmacy.

At the end of the day, Steinig believes that feeling more connected to one’s building or living community fosters an overall reduction in social isolation and loneliness, which is a major issue affecting people of all ages.