Housing: Alternative Options

A long time ago a wise woman said, "Everybody needs a place to stay." That includes the elderly members of society. Housing for older people is often ill defined and poorly understood; most people think of high-rise buildings or subsidized projects that older people move into when their neighborhoods are lost to urban development. In reality, there exists great diversity among senior housing arrangements, extending from privately owned dwellings and age-segregated housing to mobile home parks, retirement villages, congregate housing retirement hotels, granny flats, single room occupancies (SROs) and homelessness by choice or necessity. These alternatives are grouped into three main categories: (1) nonplanned or ordinary housing owned or rented by older people, accommodating 90 percent of the elder population; (2) specialized housing, accommodating 4 percent; and (3) nursing homes, accommodating 5 percent of the frail elderly.