"Pig in the Python: Design for Aging Forum," a discussion on what baby boomers need for housing as they age, offered the startling information that although governments, service providers, and developers know a large wave of boomers is coming, no clear plans are being made for boomer housing.
Liz Taylor, a specialist in aging and long-term care, said as baby boomers age our communities will look different.
Every fourth person will be gray and wrinkled, with varying degrees of fragility, Taylor said, adding it will be a permanent change in the country's demographics.
"American is a young nation about to become old," she said.
Taylor believes America hasn't done a good job of planning for boomers since they burst onto the scene. And planning for aging boomers is no different.
"The nation has little in place [to meet boomer needs]," she said.
Since 90 percent of boomers want to age in their homes, Taylor suggests creating villages with a range of options boomers can choose from:
- Condos where single boomers can live.
- Homes intergenerational families can share.
- Small homes so frail older adults don't need to walk so far.
- Modest homes caregivers can afford.
- Homes with multiple bedrooms and shared kitchens.
- Medical and other services for older adults.
For more information on Taylor’s talk, see my article “Baby Boomers Need More Than a Wheelchair Ramp to Meet Housing Needs as They Age” on my reader blog for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer called the Boomer Consumer.
Keynote speaker Matt Thornhill, one of the co-founders of the Boomer Project, said the generational values of boomers, which came about because of the defining events of their lives, are entitlement, control, personal gratification, work ethic, and optimism.
Boomers embrace the work ethic and work defines them, Thornhill said, adding boomers are driven as a generation, transformational in that they change things, and self-centered, not as in self-absorbed, but as in "What's in it for me?"
He predicts that things will change in five ways for boomers growing older:
- Boomers will move in and out of retirement. They’ll work in encore jobs, volunteer, and start their own businesses.
- Boomers will play a larger role in their healthcare due to the availability of information. They’ll want to be cared for in their homes. Chronic conditions will increase, as will the ways to treat them.
- Boomers will live in cities and create new living arrangements such as naturally occurring retirement communities, co-housing, and intergenerational living. Pods, one bedroom temporary structures wired to the main house, will become popular.
- Being old will be cool.
- Intergenerational living opportunities will be created.
For more information on Thornhill’s talk, see my articles “How Boomers Will Transform Growing Older in America – Part 1” and “How Boomers Will Transform Growing Older in America – Part 2” on the Boomer Consumer.
Local and regional architects, developers, and officials also reported on what's happening in housing for older adults at the forum. See my article “Better Communities, Neighborhoods, Design for Aging Baby Boomers” on the Boomer Consumer for more information.
AIA Seattle and AARP sponsored the Bellevue, Wash., forum.
