The Kresge Foundation is offering a funding opportunity that aims to support innovative, multi-sector solutions to housing instability, generated by community residents, that improve housing affordability and quality through policy and practice changes. Continue reading
Tag Archives: housing
Age-Friendly News Clips: Late June, 2018
Periodically, the Healthy Aging Collaborative will share news articles that mention state and local efforts to make cities, towns and regions in Massachusetts Age- and Dementia Friendly.
Check out the following articles from late June on the momentum of this movement building across the state.
- VTA Pilots Transport for Seniors to Medical Appointments on Cape (Vineyard Gazette)
- New Bedford named ‘age-friendly’ by AARP (SouthCoast Today)
- New Bedford designated an Age-Friendly Community (1420-WBSM, New Bedford News/Talk Radio)
- B’nai B’rith Housing and Hebrew SeniorLife Interested in Potential Redevelopment of Kent/Station Street Lot in Brookline (Boston Real Estate Times)
Nesterly Home-Sharing Platform Expanding Beyond Boston
Nesterly, an inter-generational online matching service for older adults and college students is expanding their service for home-sharing and looking for local partners.
After a successful pilot with the City of Boston, Nesterly is expanding their service to the greater Boston area to include communities like Medford, Somerville, Newton and others. Specifically, Nesterly is looking to identify “hosts” to create listings for spare rooms using their simple signup process and match with an already strong number of students that have created profiles. Continue reading
Governor’s Housing Choice Designation Awarded to 67 Communities
The Baker-Polito Administration announced two milestones for communities in Massachusetts under their Housing Choice Initiative, a comprehensive new effort to create 135,000 new housing units by 2025.
The initiative, announced in December 2017, includes a new set of incentives and rewards for municipalities committed to sustainable housing growth in their communities. Lt. Governor Karyn Polito announced the designation of 67 communities as Housing Choice Communities, and, in partnership with MassHousing, awarded Planning for Housing Production technical assistance grants to 15 municipalities. Both announcements will support communities in their efforts to substantially increase housing production across the Commonwealth. Continue reading
AARP Livable Communities Team Releases Housing Workbook
Housing issues show up as a common concern in many communities that commit to becoming Age- and Dementia Friendly.
In their “Roadmap to Livability” Series, AARP has officially released the third book that focuses on helping communities assess and set goals for improving housing accessibility, affordability, maintenance and modifications.
Innovation@Home: A Contest and a Call for Age-Friendly Housing Practices that Work
The World Health Organization Global Network of Age-Friendly Communities and Grantmakers in Aging are collaborating on a competition and a call for age-friendly housing practices that can inspire action around the world by showing what can be done and how it can be done. Continue reading
Salem for All Ages Releases ‘Year One’ Report
The City of Salem was among the first communities in the state to both join the AARP/WHO Network of Age-Friendly Communities and also come out with an action plan. The “Salem for All Ages” task force is once again showing leadership with a “Year One” report that highlights progress on the items laid out in the city’s Age-Friendly action plan. Continue reading
UMB Gerontology Blog: Federal Tax Reform Puts Senior Affordable Housing in Danger
The growing number of older adults in Massachusetts and nationally are running up against a lack of affordable housing options and the situation is already in crisis mode, according to Len Fishman, director of the UMass Boston Gerontology Institute.
In the Gerontology Institute’s Blog, Fishman spotlights how the current affordable senior housing crisis would be made worse by the US House of Representatives version of tax reform, which may force people out of communities where they have spent their lifetime in many cases.
As Fishman explains, “the most important remaining government program assisting the construction and preservation of affordable housing like that involves the tax-exempt private activity bonds and an accompanying 4 percent low-income housing tax credit.” Continue reading
Mass Municipal Association: Ashland tax relief fund to help seniors, disabled via donations
Communities across the state are finding creative ways of supporting older adults and all residents to remain healthy and independent. The following article is republished with permission from the October 2017 issue of The Beacon, a publication of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, a nonprofit, nonpartisan association that provides advocacy, training, publications, research and other services to Massachusetts cities and towns.
Ashland has created a tax relief fund and is seeking donations from residents to provide assistance to elderly and disabled residents on fixed incomes who face rising property tax bills.
Continue reading
Senior services symposium focuses on redefining housing for our aging population
Registration is now open for an upcoming senior services symposium to assist housing professionals, service providers, policy makers and others concerned about ensuring that older adults can actively age in community.
Older Adults, New Ground: Redefining Housing for Our Aging Population
Wednesday, October 4th
9:00 AM – 2:30 PM
Newbridge on the Charles | Dedham, MA
Attendees can expect to:
- Learn about best practices in the continuum of aging services in housing for low-income older adults.
- Participate in workshops on relevant topics such as innovative partnerships in housing and services.
- Learn how to advocate to help address the service and housing needs of aging adults.
Questions? Contact: OlderAdultsNewGround@EnterpriseCommunity.org