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Chicago, IL

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2018

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

Description: This project set out to increase awareness of accessory dwelling units -- small housing units constructed on a property alongside a preexisting single family home. The Metropolitan Mayors Caucus held its proposes a Granny Flat Academy, a series of educational workshops for Chicagoland residents, elected officials and municipal staff. The workshops highlighted best practices for amending ordinances to allow ADU construction and how to educate residents about the benefits of ADUs. Organizers say ADUs support lifelong communities, allowing people to age in place in their neighborhoods in an accessible, affordable setting.

Terrytown, LA

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2024

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

Description: This project will support construction of affordable housing units for older adults in a cottage community. The homes will incorporate universal design elements, feature green infrastructure and connect to a microgrid to keep the power on during severe weather.

Dallas, TX

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2024

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

Description: Seminars, workshops and a design competition will demonstrate the value of accessory dwelling units for older homeowners, who can rent the ADUs to students and generate additional income. Participants live in a neighborhood situated between two colleges, which are experiencing severe student housing shortages.

Nearby AARP Community Challenge Projects

Medford, OR

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2021

Project Category: Lifelong housing and accessibility

Description: Recent wildfires and the COVID-19 pandemic compounded a growing homelessness crisis in Medford. Part of a statewide initiative to expand non-congregate emergency shelter services, Rogue Retreat worked to convert the 47-room Redwood Inn into transitional housing. This project made accessibility upgrades to a single-room-occupancy unit on the property. Rogue Retreat hired an architect to design features including a zero-step entranceway, ADA-compliant handrails in the unit's bathroom and accessible features for the kitchenette. The upgrades allow Rogue Retreat to provide shelter for unhoused individuals of all ages and abilities, giving them needed stability as they search for permanent housing.

Talent, OR

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2019

Project Category: Entrepreneurship and improved economic resilience

Description: Through a series of intergenerational workshops, Talent Maker City invited residents of all ages to learn STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) skills, such as carpentry, 3D printing and screen printing. Workshop activities included screen printing shirts for a garden club fundraiser, building bat houses and making pollinator watering dishes. The pollinator theme reflected Talent's designation as a Bee City USA and local interest in pollinator gardens. Although COVID-19 restrictions curtailed the program's full impact, the city's maker space established a partnership with the Talent Garden Club. Future plans include programming to promote Talent as an age-friendly city.

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