Aging in place?
As baby boomers get older, there could be a housing shortage, study says.
An aging population over the next two decades will increase demand for affordable, accessible housing that isn’t available in the current market, a new Harvard University report has found.
By 2035, more than one in five people in the U.S. will be 65 or older, according to “Projections and Implications for Housing a Growing Population: Older Adults 2015-2035,” released last week by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.
The part of the baby boom generation over 65 will grow to 79 million, from 48 million, in the next 20 years. More housing will need to be designed specifically for older people who need single-floor living, with wide doors and hallways and no steps at the entrances, the report found. Only3.5 percent of homes offer these features.
“The housing implications of this surge in the older adult population are many,” Chris Herbert, managing director of the Harvardcenter, said in a statement, “and call for innovative approaches to respond to growing need for housing that is affordable, accessible and linked to supportive services that will grow exponential ly over the next two decades.”
Financial hardships will also persist. Some 6.4million low-income renters will pay more than 30 percent of their income on housing by 2035. Among homeowners ,8.6 million people will be paying half of their income for housing in that time frame.
The number of adults qualifying for federal subsidies is projected to increase 90percent from 2013.
“Right now, more than 19 million older adults live in unaffordable or inadequate housing, and that problem will only grow worse in the next two decades as our population ages,” Lisa Marsh Rye rs on, president of AA RP Foundation, which provided funding for the report, said in a statement.