Indiana Housing & Community Development Authority: Policy Evaluation of Aging in Place

Abstract

Aging in place refers to making the living environment safe and adaptable for everyone to remain independent and thrive in their homes and community even as circumstances change. The primary target populations for aging in place strategies are seniors and persons with disabilities. The effort involves construction of buildings and communities that are accessible, and livable. Creation of these housing opportunities means Hoosiers can choose how and where they live: rent or own, urban or rural, close to school or close to work. The Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority (IHCDA) has been working on developing a working definition of “Aging in Place” (AiP) in order to enhance the aging in place strategic initiative to support seniors and persons with disabilities in Indiana. As a result an evaluation of the current initiative was completed to determine the needs of the target population and to enhance the strategic priority. The goal of the program evaluation is to determine if the working definition of AiP fully encompasses the needs of the community and target population. The evaluation design involves learning and improvement of the IHCDA AiP priority and intends to improve the process. The evaluation team conducted one focus group to collect more in-depth information on perceptions, insights, attitudes, experiences, and beliefs regarding AiP. Five major themes from the focus group were identified including family, accessibility, independence, community integration, and finances. The evaluation was also able to identify a unique perspective of the definition of “home” shared by the aging in place community. To establish a home a physical and psychological component must be met. Furthermore, independent senior living communities were identified as being in high demand. Based on the findings of the evaluation, three recommendations were developed to enhance the AiP priority at IHCDA. It is recommended that IHCDA amend the working definition to explicitly characterize the meaning of home based on the findings of this evaluation. IHCDA should also increase allocation of funds to independent senior living communities and should perform ongoing evaluations to ensure that current needs of the AiP community are being identified and met. Ongoing evaluation with the data collection tool developed in this evaluation will ensure that the AiP strategic priority at IHCDA is on the right path moving forward.