‘How Housing Matters’ grant aims to alleviate stress of an elderly lifestyle
Nadia Greenhalgh-Stanley works on her “Aging and Place” project in her office on September 5th. The 3-year project, which just started this summer, incorporates elderly housing and health. Photo by Jacob Byk.
September 6, 2012
While searching for the perfect home, you may not think about the different aspects that could eventually make your elderly life strenuous and difficult.
“A lot of elderly want to age in place,” Dr. Nadia Greenhalgh–Stanley, assistant professor of economics, said. “If you ask an elderly person if they want to live in a nursing home or stay in their own home, most are going to say they want to live at home.”
Greenhalgh-Stanley and her co-authors, Gary Engelhardt of Syracuse University and Mike Eriksen of University of Georgia, want to use their recently acquired research grant of $500,000 to shed light on elderly housing decisions and how it relates to their health.
Greenhalgh-Stanley and her two colleagues discovered they won the three-year MacArthur Foundation research grant in January. The “How Housing Matters” grant will enable the group to find affordable means of housing that enable the elderly to make adjustments so they can live in their own homes longer.
Aging at home can be a difficult task as people grow older because they begin to depend more on family. One solution Eriksen is interested in is continuing care retirement facilities.
A continuing care retirement facility is a retirement community that offers independent and assisted living for the elderly, with increased levels of care as needs change.
Living options such as continuing care retirement communities have many benefits but can be pricey. Another area Eriksen said he is interested in looking at is what the government can do to help the elderly age at home.
Medicare and Medicaid are two topics of interest for government help. Eriksen was most interested in tax codes for home improvements, which he said could help elderly stay at home longer. He said that getting help to make improvements, such as building a wheelchair ramp, could help aged adults stay at home without added stress.
The three researchers have a long road ahead of them as they are just beginning the three-year stretch of working together with the “How Housing Matters” grant.
“Working with Dr. Greenhalgh-Stanley,” Eriksen said, “we look forward to it.”
Contact Mary Kate Garvey at [email protected].
