housing

The AARP Public Policy Institute recently launched a three-year initiative which aims to transform long term care in the United States. LTSS Choices will be a series of reports, blogs, videos, podcasts, and virtual convenings that seek to catalyze reform and spark ideas to modernize LTSS, long term services and supports. The goal is a long-term care system that provides a wide range of choices to meet the dynamic needs and preferences of consumers and their families.

This guide is intended to help older homeowners meet their reverse mortgage (Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM)) loan obligations while recovering from a hurricane, fire, flood or other natural disaster. The guide reviews reverse mortgage obligations, provides tips for dealing with your insurance company, and offers additional resources for assistance.

This report explores the factors that are associated with the financial well-being of older Americans. It looks at the association of financial well-being and a range of topics including employment and retirement; housing situation; debt; family and living arrangement; health-related experience; and financial knowledge, skill, and behavior. The findings indicate that, in general, financial well-being increases with age into the late seventies, then declines.

Age Wave conducted nine recent study reports in collaboration with Bank of America Merrill Lynch on the future of retirement. These reports were created by reviewing thousands of papers, reports, and datasets, conducting over 140 expert interviews and 43 focus groups, and surveying 50,000+ respondents. The nine reports cover a variety of topics regarding retirement, including family, health, leisure, and finances. All nine reports are followed by sample media coverage.

Affordable, accessible housing located in age-friendly communities is already in short supply. As the American population continues to age, demand for this housing will continue to increase. Additionally, many older adults are at risk of having insufficient resources to manage rising healthcare and housing costs in their later years and may struggle to pay for their housing and other basic necessities. This paper discuses these and other issues around housing for older Americans.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released the first in a series of two reports examining issues related to housing for older adults. This first report looks at how federal agencies currently work together to meet the needs of older Americans in federally assisted housing. In this report, GAO recommends including USDA in collaborations and defining outcomes in order to inform stakeholders of results achieved and strategies or areas on which to focus.

This report documents the nationwide housing affordability crisis experienced by people with disabilities. The report discusses how in 2016, millions of adults with disabilities living solely on Supplemental Security Income (SSI) found that renting even a modest unit in their community would require nearly all of their monthly income. The report offers policy recommendations to address this crisis.

This report reviews federal health and housing policies, noting the barriers created that seniors with clinically-driven housing insecurity must navigate. It also reviews a series of initiatives that ACAP members are undertaking to address housing as a social determinant for this vulnerable population, with examples from California, Ohio, and North Carolina.

AARP has released an update from their Public Policy Livable Communities division, which explains that communities need to encourage more accessible homes for older adults and their families by requiring that single family homes meet visitability requirements with features such as having an entrance without steps, kitchen counters set at multiple heights, and half-bathrooms at the ground level.

The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) is the federal government’s primary way for producing affordable rental housing. LIHTC provides $8 billion in annual budget authority to state and local housing agencies to help produce new and rehabilitated rental housing for low-income households. The program has also generated over 3 million housing units since its inception.