Housing for Retiring Baby Boomers - New Ideas or More Urban Sprawl

• Sarah Michael sarahmichael@cox.net
• Philip Stafford staffor@indiana.edu

We need to start tracking retiring Baby Boomers and their housing choices and mobility as the behavior of past generations may not be a good predictor of the future! Only 4-5%% of those over 65 yrs old tend to move…..will the highly mobile Baby Boomer generation keep this trend or will there be large numbers moving to greenfield retirement communities or downtowns or ranchettes?

Philip Stafford – Conversation with Philip Stafford, Director, Center on Aging and Community on the potential housing choices of retiring Baby Boomers.

Tracking second home ownership shows that only 4-5% of people over 65 or above move their place of residence, and over 85 yrs of age, there is a higher number that move because of necessity. Boomers have had more job mobility, however, so this may influence how many move after retirement. There have been sample surveys of seniors to help develop priorities for senior programs. One example is Puyawallup, WA 40,000.

There are two groups who are now moving downtown: twenty something and young professionals and post 50 year olds; Boston is looking at elder friendly business districts; technical assistance to a business districts to make it more elder friendly and a certification program. Non-profit – Elder Friendly Businesses, Idaho certification program.

Scientific survey of older people about downtown issues – clerks are not friendly, lack of retail, doors too heavy, no dime stores, basic needs are not trade-offs on impacts of seniors and public resources – no consensus on their impacts.

Return phenomena in the 80’s where people move back to where their kids are?

Northern Colorado – Visiting Nurse Services in Routt County, both Susan Birch and Dace Kramer are trying to address this, and ways to create a village center, telemedicine and recruit retiring professionals.

Planned retired communities will contribute to sprawl, and gated green field developments.

Resources:

• Bullfrog films – gated retirement communities and the questions of what is community?
• Green Valley Arizona – CCRC
• Florida – The Villages, 60,000 people.
• Will Durret – Senior Co Housing, examples; multi-generational Co-housing.
• Steven Golant at the University of Florida – Need for a public policy decision; support aging in place or developing new housing. “Aging in Place” is more predominant policy by local governments and state government.
• Indianapolis Retirement Home was an institution; has a nursing home that lost money and they had to shut is down. Wanted to use the money for other senior services, transferred all of the funds to the Community Foundation and then used their board to strategically plan how the funds could be used to benefit all seniors. They also developed a priority to help nutrient needs and give some grants to smaller efforts.
• Indianapolis Retirement Home Fund; Central Indiana Community Foundation.
• Utilization of Senior Centers may change because boomers don’t use them.