World needs creative solutions for elderly housing finds study
LOS ANGELES: The world is ill-prepared to ensure housing and care for the growing ranks of elderly, a new Harvard study shows. It stresses that creative ideas are needed to help house people with fixed or dwindling incomes.
As its population ages, the United States is ill-prepared to adequately house and care for the growing number of older people, concludes a new report being released Nov. 30 by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.
Without enough government help, “many older adults will have to forgo needed care or rely on family and friends for assistance,” warned Jennifer Molinsky, project director of the center’s Housing an Aging Society Program. Many may become unhoused.
Ms. Molinsky said more governmental assistance could better help the upsurge of older Americans who are baby boomers born after World War II.
The report says that in 2021, federal housing assistance like Section 8 or Section 202 – which provides housing with supportive services such as cleaning, cooking, and transportation for older people – was only sufficient for a little more than a third of the 5.9 million renters ages 62 and over who were eligible.
Creative ideas are especially needed now to house people with fixed or dwindling incomes and with insufficient savings, the report says. Think house or apartment sharing to cut back on costs rather than living alone, in accessory dwelling units or ADUs known as casitas, granny flats, and in-law units. There are also cohousing communities where individual homes – sometimes even tiny homes – are arranged around a building with a communal space such as a dining room.
Over the next decade, the U.S. population over the age of 75 will increase by 45%, growing from 17 million to nearly 25 million. And many of those people are projected to struggle financially. The report notes that in 2021, nearly 11.2 million older adults were “cost burdened,” which means they spend more than 30% of their income on housing.