The Senior Tsunami is coming, and it's going to be a doozy. That's the gist of a recent article in Affordable Housing Finance. Where will all these seniors live? And what about the low-income seniors, whose incomes will be reduced even more when they no longer work and their housing and healthcare costs continue to rise?

Unfortunately, the HUD Section 202 program, which has a long history of providing independent living apartments for seniors with very low incomes and few other options, has essentially been dismantled. The LIHTC program fills some of the need for  moderate-income residents, but for seniors with low-incomes--often solely SSI--those rents are still too high. In addition, the HUD 202 program has consistently provided housing in rural areas and small towns to allow rural seniors to remain in their communities.

It's a shame that the US Department of Housing and Urban Development is getting out of the business of Housing at a time like this.

To quote from the article,

As all signs point to a fast-growing need for more affordable housing, funding to develop projects is shrinking.

“As the population is growing, the appropriations and supply are dropping,” says Bill Kelly, president and CEO of Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future (SAHF), a network of 12 social enterprise nonprofits. “We’ve reduced our investments, there are long waiting lists, and we need to step it up.”

Kelly points to the downsizing of the Sec. 202 program as one of the culprits. “It’s gone from a very large program to a small program to nothing,” he says. In the 1970s, tens of thousands of Sec. 202 units were built for seniors. But those numbers trickled down to 3,000 to 4,000 a year, with no new money for the program in the fiscal 2012 HUD budget.

We have seen first-hand the success of the HUD Section 202 program. It is effective and efficient, and it really works.

Something will have to give. We are keeping a close eye on alternative ways to meet this growing need for affordable senior housing.

SHG is working with the United Church Homes and Services to develop HUD Section 202 independent living apartments for seniors with low-incomes next to a new Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) Center in Lexington, North Carolina. As far as we know, it will be the first such co-located PACE-202 project in the country. While residents of the 202 apartments live independently, being located next to a PACE center will mean that they can remain in their apartments for longer than they might otherwise; the PACE programs will facilitate aging in place by providing necessary medical and support services adjacent to the 202 apartments.

PACE provides community care for seniors who are frail, allowing them to remain in their homes and communities for much longer than they would without such a community-based program.

While PACE centers have been around for a while—the first one was established in San Francisco in the early 1970s—they are just now becoming well-known in the Southeast. Everyone wins: the participants receive quality, community-based care, transportation, medical services, nutrition, and social services, and are able to remain in their own homes longer; caregivers and family members are relieved from daily care duties; and PACE providers benefit from keeping participants healthy. Studies have shown that PACE programs are actually more cost-effective than nursing home care, not to mention improving the quality of life for participants.   

SHG is delighted to be working on this innovative collaboration with the PACE program. See our Resources page for more information on PACE.