Bath, ME

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2022

Project Category: Accessory dwelling units, tiny homes and manufactured housing

Description: To inform residents about the benefits of accessory dwelling units, the local age-friendly initiative launched an educational campaign. ADUs consist of a second housing unit -- including self-contained apartments, cottages or small houses -- constructed on a property alongside a preexisting single-family home. Organizers produced a multimedia package, including an ADU toolkit, video content, a website and social media posts.

Atlanta, GA

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2018

Project Category: Accessory dwelling units, tiny homes and manufactured housing

Description: To educate the public about options to age in place, MicroLife Institute created a 4-minute informational video on accessory dwelling units -- small dwellings built on a property alongside a preexisting single-family home. The video features firsthand accounts of what it's like to live in or build an ADU. For Katharine Connell, a young Atlanta mother and homeowner, an ADU means multi-generational housing for her aging mother. My mom and I have always been very close, she tells viewers. For others in the video, renting out an ADU led to supplemental income or provided tenants with more affordable option, helping them remain in their neighborhood. Organizers say they hope the video serves as a tool to mobilize residents to demand their local commissions permit more housing options, including ADUs.

Conway, NH

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2017

Project Category: Accessory dwelling units, tiny homes and manufactured housing

Description: In 2017, the New Hampshire legislature legalized the construction of accessory dwelling units throughout the state. To promote this age-friendly housing option, the Mount Washington Valley Housing Coalition created information about the benefits of ADUs. This included print resources, videos and in-person presentations, which they distributed throughout the 10 towns encompassing the Mount Washington Valley. What was most gratifying were the responses from everyone who heard the multiple benefits of ADUs, realized their own properties could qualify, saw the possibilities for elderly parents, learned that the old regulations no longer applied and felt empowered to talk to their own planning board members to advocate for flexible and permissive interpretations of the law, a representative of the coalition said. Since launching the initiative, the coalition has worked to educate real estate agents about ADUs. The organization has since added a town-by-town guide to local ADU ordinances.