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Tucson, AZ
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2021
Project Category: Lifelong housing and accessibility
Description: Like many communities, Tucson has struggled to meet the needs of older adults who want to age in place but lack the resources to stay in their homes. To address this, Tucson created a formalized home sharing program through a new organization, Tucson Home Sharing Inc. The organization has hired staff, formed relationships with county leaders, conducted public meetings, created promotional materials and built an online presence -- all with the goal of connecting older adults with younger roommates. The housemates can help with meal preparation, shopping, transportation, small home repair tasks and pet care. In exchange, they receive decreased or no rent. Organizers hope this decreases social isolation and increases the supply of the affordable housing within the community, enabling older adults to remain in their neighborhoods.
Akron, OH
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2024
Project Category: Lifelong housing and accessibility
Description: The project will help support construction of a 16-unit affordable housing development in Akron. The homes will incorporate accessibility features for older adults.
Washington, DC
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2020
Project Category: Lifelong housing and accessibility
Description: In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Iona Senior Services needed to transform its Aging Solo series from in-person classes to Zoom instruction. The popular series provides information, strategies and a supportive community to older adults who don't have a family support network. Iona offered the virtual classes for six weeks and -- to reach a larger audience -- recorded them for future sharing. The new online format allowed Iona to reach individuals who would not have been able to participate in person, and course leaders modified the curriculum to recognize the pandemic's impact on older adults. To expand the initiative's reach, project organizers also created and distributed an electronic discussion guide for use by faith communities, aging-in-place villages and other organizations.
Nearby AARP Community Challenge Projects
North Conway, NH
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2019
Project Category: Lifelong housing and accessibility
Description: To help homeowners with extra space in their homes find potential tenants, the Gibson Center created a website. The site features information about homesharing, as well as the option for people looking for rooms to rent to match with those with space to share. Modeled after successful homesharing initiatives in other states, the new homesharing service provides reference screenings and background checks, as well as a guide through New Hampshire's landlord-tenant laws.
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.
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