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Congregate Housing

Looking To The Future

Although there has been an increase in supportive housing innovations and initiatives since the late 1980s, supportive housing is still not readily available, and many complexes have long waiting lists. Golant, in The Casera Project, recommends several strategies to expand the availability and quality of supportive housing (pages 33–36), including the following:

  • • Increased funding for service coordinators
  • • Incentives for complexes to provide services
  • • Strengthened partnerships among state agencies, service providers, housing complexes, and others
  • • Assistance to property managers
  • • Continued research.

Other strategies include the following:

  • • Applying the lessons learned from planned supportive housing—especially in terms of service coordination, service delivery, and balancing support and challenge—to buildings or neighborhoods with disproportionate numbers of older people (sometimes known as naturally occurring retirement communities.
  • • Developing more options for middle-income older people, such as supportive cooperative housing.

SUSAN C. LANSPERY

See also CONTINUING CARE RETIREMENT COMMUNITIES; GOVERNMENT ASSISTED HOUSING; HOUSING.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

GOLANT, S. M. Housing America's Elderly: Many Possibilities, Few Choices. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1992.

GOLANT, S. M. The Casera Project: Creating Affordable and Supportive Elder Renter Accommodations. Gainesville: University of Florida, 1999.

HEUMANN, L. F. "A Cost Comparison of Congregate Housing and Long-Term Care Facilities for Elderly Residents with Comparable Support Needs in 1985 and 1990." In Congregate Housing for the Elderly: Theoretical, Policy, and Programmatic Perspectives. Edited by Lenard W. Kaye and Abraham Monk. Binghamton N.Y.: Haworth Press, 1991. Pages 75–98.

HOLLAND, J.; GANZ, L.; HIGGINS, P.; and ANTONELLI, K. "Service Coordinators in Senior Housing: An Exploration of an Emerging Role in Long-Term Care." Journal of Case Management 4, no. 3, (Fall 1995): 25–29.

MILBANK MEMORIAL FUND, in cooperation with the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging. Linking Housing and Health Services for Older Persons. New York: MMF, 1997.

PYNOOS, J. "Supportive Housing for the Elderly: Past, Present, and Future." The Public Policy and Aging Report 8, no. 2 (Spring 1997): 14–15.

SCHULMAN, A. "Service Coordination: Program Development and Initial Findings." Journal of Long-Term Home Health Care 15, no. 2, (Spring 1996): 5–12.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT. Evaluation of the Service Coordinator Program. 2 vols. HUD-1614-PDC. Washington, D.C.: Office of Policy Development and Research, HUD, 1996.

Additional topics

Medicine EncyclopediaAging Healthy - Part 1Congregate Housing - Why Supportive Housing?, The Federal Congregate Housing Services Program, Looking To The Future