What will it take to make the dream of aging-in-place a reality?

How does where you live allow you to live how you want to live? This is a question whose answer changes over time. As we age, our needs change, but our homes often don’t change with us. To talk about this, we circled back with AARP’s Rodney Harrell, Ph.D, whom we interviewed in the inaugural issue of What the Future.

AARP continues to grow its Livable Communities initiative and recently announced a new relationship with Lowe’s to educate homeowners on how to make changes to their homes as they age.

Matt Carmichael: It’s been almost five years since we last spoke in our inaugural What the Future. What has gotten better about our nation's response to an aging population?

Rodney Harrell: The first thing that comes to mind is the understanding of the fact that we are a nation that’s diversifying in many ways and especially age. My job has gotten a little bit easier in that way, in that there’s wider recognition amongst policy leaders and in the business sector and some of the population as well. In the last two years, the fact that folks have been dealing with this horrible specter of COVID-19 has really drawn attention to making sure that we have housing that meets our needs as we age.

Carmichael: What still needs to be done?

Harrell: We certainly don't have enough communities and housing options that meet our needs over the lifetime. We're still hearing from folks that are compromised in their housing situations because they don't have a choice but to stay in the home that may have worked for them decades ago but becomes a nightmare when you can no longer get up the stairs or you can no longer easily drive to the store or you’re isolated. What we need to do as a nation is transform that knowledge and understanding of the aging population into action and build some of these housing options and communities and shape them in ways that meet the needs of people of all ages.

Carmichael: What are some other ways that policy can help?

Harrell: Anything that we can do to create more options is a good thing. The more options you have, the better chance people have to meet their needs. Changes to zoning would enable different kinds of options being built, like duplexes and triplexes. Our livability index shows that 80%+ of the nation’s neighborhoods have only single-family housing.

Carmichael: One idea proposed for helping both with the aging population and the kind of caregiving roles related to that, is coach houses, tiny homes, basement apartments and other “accessory dwelling units” or ADUs. Do you see that as a solution?

Harrell: I’m a big fan of accessory dwelling units as not the solution but a solution. If you don't have friendly legislation in your town, that's one thing. Even if you do, there are financing and design challenges. But it’s the best way that I've found of getting more choice into existing neighborhoods. We can insert basically new housing options where other ones didn't exist other than a single-family home. It puts the power in the hands of homeowners. It's not just left open to developers or others to figure this out. It gives power to you as a homeowner to create options that may work for you or your parents or loved ones.

Carmichael: A lot of energy is focused on building new solutions and new housing, but retrofitting is really the bigger issue, right?

Harrell: One of the reasons I'm excited by things like the interest in ADUs and expanding zoning, is because it's starting to crack that nut of how we make change in existing communities. There are 100 million-plus homes in the country. We could talk about legislation for the new homes that we're building or new communities that we're creating, and that's great. But we also have to roll up our sleeves and think creatively about the ways that we can also make changes in existing housing. There's some low hanging fruit out there, but I think we also need to take on the higher fruit as well.

Carmichael: Is that part of what you're also hoping to do with the new relationship with Lowe’s?

Harrell: Absolutely. It's helping us to empower homeowners to make changes to their home that can help those homes to better meet their needs. We're providing educational resources to help you think ahead about needs.

Carmichael: What can we learn from other countries that are facing similar demographic changes?

Harrell: There are many countries that look at multigenerational housing in different ways than we do, and it's much more common. We've been used to a single-family house in this country for a long time. But there are many places where multigenerational housing has been a construction technique and approach in the way that they're located and situated. We need to figure out how to translate them for the American context.

For more highlights from this interview, please listen to our podinar.