Seattle, Washington Print

Joined the AARP Age-Friendly Network:
7/27/2016

Lead Agency: City of Seattle, Human Services Department, Aging and Disability Services

Government Agency

Action Plan Download

An action plan is based on the results of community surveys identifying needs within the 8 Domains of Livability that influence the health and quality of life of older adults. While there is flexibility in how a plan is created and what it will do, every action plan includes a statement about what can be achieved, target dates for goal completion, identification of participating organizations and indicators to measure progress. The action plan is an "active" rather than static document. Revisions and amendments are a sign of program improvement and progress.

Action Plan Highlights

  1. Health and Community Services

    Involve more older adults and people with disabilities in neighborhood emergency preparation and safety programs, while developing and implementing strategies to disseminate emergency preparedness information to older adults and caregivers.

  2. Respect and Inclusion

    Educate city employees, boards, and commissions about the impacts of age, disability, and memory loss, along with the "no wrong door" information and assistance service.

  3. Transportation

    Advance age-friendly mobility through community-based transportation services by collaborating with transit agencies.

Progress Report Download

Seattle's progress report highlights many successes related to housing access, transportation and public spaces. The City promoted universal design standards, interacting with residents at public events and conducting demonstration projects on features that support aging in place. An interdepartmental project aimed to map out the community's age-friendly housing inventory, with efforts culminating in visitability standards for new housing development. To make the community more walkable, the local age-friendly initiative helped create an age-friendly street design toolkit. The City also made physical improvements to its streets and enhanced wayfinding. Finally, Seattle worked to address social isolation, bringing residents together for in-person and virtual events -- including monthly "Civic Coffee" meetups -- which organizers made sure were linguistically inclusive.

Nearby AARP Community Challenge Projects

Casa Latina (2024)

Seattle, WA

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2024

Project Category: Digital navigation skills

Description: This project will provide digital literacy classes to Latino immigrant workers. This will give lower-income residents access to computers and improve their technology skills, allowing them to access job opportunities.

City of Seattle (2017)

Seattle, WA

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2017

Project Category: Engaging residents alongside thought leaders in problem solving

Description: Seattle's city government invited technology specialists, designers and older adults to take part in a weekend hackathon. Participants brainstormed ways to use public data and technology to understand the built environment and improve the lives of Seattle's older adult residents. The City offered cash prizes to teams with winning ideas. Team Pandora for Streets took home the top prize for their map that used unusual crowdsourced data to evaluate the urban environment, such as street-level smells and noises. Other winning projects used crowdsourced bus stop data to evaluate accessibility and visualized needed repairs to Seattle's sidewalk network. Part of the Age-Friendly Seattle initiative, the civic hackathon reflects Seattle's commitment to becoming a livable community for people of all ages and abilities, Candice Faber, the city's civic technology advocate, said.

ABOUT THE AARP COMMUNITY CHALLENGE

Launched in 2017, the annual AARP Community Challenge provides small grants to local governments and nonprofits in order to fund quick-action, ready-to-implement projects that can help communities become more livable for people of all ages.

See all nearby projects

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AARP Washington State Office

18000 International Boulevard
Suite 1020
SeaTac (Seattle), WA 98188
United States

Phone: 866-227-7457
Fax: 206-517-9350
Email: [email protected]