Despite aging-in-place preferences, senior support services are in short supply

If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times: Older Americans want to age in place in their own homes, and they also want to remain in their current communities. But these desires could clash with a reality that many communities across the country simply don’t have the resources to support seniors, according to a recent article from HomeCare.

In December, AARP published its 2024 Home and Community Preferences Survey. It found that despite the overwhelming desires of seniors to remain in their homes as they get older, there is significant policy work to do nationwide and inside individual communities to better align with these preferences.

Deb Whitman, executive vice president and chief policy officer for AARP, spoke with HomeCare about what the organization is seeing as the challenges continue to persist, and she dove more deeply into the survey results and their implications.

“We need to find ways to make it easier to age in place,” Whitman said. “The ideal living situation is not only about health and safety, but also about joy, purpose and connection — whether aging in place means staying in your home, remaining in your community or simply living anywhere but a nursing home, having options is what matters most.”

Homes and communities, she added, are simply unequipped to meet future demand as the U.S. population tilts increasingly in an older direction. Fewer than 1% of existing single-family homes are wheelchair accessible, while fewer than 4% are not easily modified to account for mobility challenges that naturally emerge in later life.

“As our nation ages at a historic rate, the stakes couldn’t be higher,” Whitman said.

But there could also be a business opportunity for the remodeling industry due to these needs, according to a recent trade publication report that assessed the health of the remodeling industry.

While market conditions are stalling larger-scale remodeling projects, consumers who seek remodeling work are focused on efforts that could serve to increase home values and to “future-proof” homes for later life and aging in place, according to the article at Kitchen & Bath Design News.

AARP also recently highlighted the potential role of implementing more technology into aging-in-place processes and goals. It found that older adults are largely comfortable with using more technology in their daily lives and find it useful as they seek to age in place, particularly as a tool for health management.