As a community that committed to becoming more age-friendly early on, and with a broad, cross-sector coalition, the Salem for All Ages initiative has commonly been highlighted as an example for others.

Recently, the city’s age-friendly work hit another milestone with the release of their Year Five Progress Report.

The Massachusetts Healthy Aging Collaborative previously posted about Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll’s editorial on the five-year anniversary of the initiative by listing out some of their proud accomplishments.

According to the report, Salem for All Ages is planning further development of the Salem Skipper, an app based, on-demand transit service offering shared rides that operates within the city limits. The service was piloted with support from the Tufts Health Plan Foundation (now Point32 Health Foundation). Now, Salem State University is contributing funds towards the service to assist with its student population’s transportation needs and a pilot program with Salem Hospital will be launched soon which will provide the hospital with a custom booking platform to book rides for discharged patients who do not have access to transportation.

Also, after decades of attempts, the city and Salem for All Ages were successful with a major overhaul of their Accessory Dwelling Unit policies.

For more detailed info, along with goals for 2022, check out the Year Five Progress Report here.