City Of Ann Arbor 2013 Sustainable Ann Arbor Forums: Planning For Change in Our Community: Diverse Housing

Fri, 06/05/2009 - 9:45am

When: March 21, 2013 at the Downtown Library: Multi-Purpose Room

This third in a series of four discussions (held monthly and ending in April) centers on Diverse Housing, including how to meet the current and future needs of the community with changing housing demographics, such as older residents, a high rental population, and affordability. Building on the public forums from last year, the 2013 forums focus on planning for change in the community. A think tank of local stakeholders, including University of Michigan faculty, representatives from community organizations, and city commissioners, join City of Ann Arbor staff and the public to discuss local sustainability concepts and efforts--past, present and future. The presentations discuss conditions that are changing in the community and past and potential actions to adapt to change. Each program will also include tips for individual actions that residents may take.Speakers include: Steve Bredernitz, Bredernitz Professional Services; Eunice Burns, Ann Arbor resident and former Ann Arbor City Council member; Ryan Cowmeadow, HomeShare Coordinator, Housing Bureau for Seniors; Karen Kafantaris, Associate State Director, AARP; and Wendy Rampson, Planning Manager, City of Ann Arbor.

Transcript

[00:00:22.00] KEN RAYNOR: I want to welcome everybody to the program tonight. My name is Ken Raynor from the community relations department here at the library. Tonight's program is the city of Ann Arbor 2013 sustainable Ann Arbor forums. This is the third in a series of four. And there'll be another program in the series in April.
[00:00:40.79] Tonight's program is on diverse housing in Ann Arbor. And I will now turn the program over to Wendy Rampson who's the planning manager for the city of Ann Arbor. And she can take it from there and introduce everyone else to you. Thank you very much.
[00:00:59.16] WENDY RAMPSON: Welcome. Thank you for coming on this evening when there are lots of other activities in Ann Arbor. So we know that you are committed to this topic and interested. So hopefully we'll be able to give you a good sense of what we can be doing for sustainability as it relates to housing.
[00:01:17.61] Earlier this year, the city officially adopted 16 goals to create a framework for sustainability that's now incorporated into our master plan. What this means for Ann Arbor is that there will be a more conscious integration of sustainability into future master plans. So for instance, right now we are working on our South State Street corridor plan, which is a land use and transportation plan. We're also updating our non-motorized plan.
[00:01:43.54] And so as a part of those planning efforts, we are taking these 16 goals and working to integrate them into the recommendations. Also this means that sustainability will be considered as the city sets priorities for future expenditures in infrastructure, and our programs, and our planning.
[00:02:02.08] So we're hopeful that these types of discussions here and the discussions that we're having at the city about sustainability will move us forward in our policies. This year's series is looking to bring sustainability concepts into our everyday life. So we are really trying to make an attempt to bring it down beyond that abstraction to what we do on a daily basis.
[00:02:25.93] So far in this year's forum series, we've explored adapting to our changing climate and how to support a robust local economy. So those were the two earlier ones. Tonight, we're going to focus on diverse housing.
[00:02:39.61] The sustainability goal that we will be speaking to you today is to provide high quality, safe, efficient, and affordable housing choices for now and into the future. So that's a pretty big topic. Housing's a very big topic. In addition to housing, you can also talk about elements that are needed to support housing in a community, which would be things like transportation, access to commercial services.
[00:03:06.77] But what we're going to explore this evening is that part about how to meet the current and future needs of the community. And specifically, we're going to talk about an aging community. Although it's not restricted to an aging community, that's going to be the central focus of the discussion this evening.
[00:03:22.86] The aging of the Baby Boomers is a very well publicized issue nationally. But you may not be aware of some of the changes that are already happening and we're already seeing in Ann Arbor. Here's some numbers from the 2010 census about Ann Arbor-- things that have happened in the last decade.
[00:03:40.46] Family households. So these are households that are related individuals. It could be a mother and father. It could be two adults with children. That type of household has decreased by 8% while nontraditional households have increased by almost that same amount, by 7.5%. So as a community, we have more groupings or households of people who may not be related to each other.
[00:04:06.11] Households with one or more individuals age 65 plus has increased by 22%. So we definitely have a situation where we have more older people represented in our households.
[00:04:22.41] The city added over 2,600 dwelling units in that 10 year time frame. Right now, we're just under 50,000 housing units in the city. At the same time, Ann Arbor's population decreased by a couple hundred people. So that is an interesting dilemma. What that means is that the trend nationally of decreasing household size is happening here, too.
[00:04:46.27] So as we're adding housing units, we're having fewer people that live in them. And our population is stable, which is great. Many urban areas actually lost population. But what we're saying is that we are having smaller households within Ann Arbor.
[00:05:01.76] So what we're also learning is that the fit between the housing supply that we have in this older community and the housing demand that's going to be challenged by demographics as we age is that the Boomers and the Millennials are looking for, very broadly, smaller units. Fewer people in these units. They're looking for non-motorized and transit access to goods and services, to their commercial options, to their job opportunities and volunteer opportunities. Again, this is a very broad statement, but they're generally looking for a more urban and less suburban type of environment.
[00:05:41.77] So Ann Arbor, we make the "Best of" lists. And one of those "Best of" lists is best place to retire. We're pretty fortunate to have a good variety of housing types compared to perhaps some other cities.
[00:05:54.52] But we still have a large number of older, single family detached houses as a part of this housing stock. So right now, we have 41% of our housing units in Ann Arbor are what we call single family detached. So these are your traditional homes sitting on a lot by itself and usually in a subdivision.
[00:06:16.57] So that is a pretty large portion of our housing. Although we learned recently that it could be as high as 71% for the state of Michigan or 61% nationally.
[00:06:28.37] 15% of our housing stock is what we call single family attached. And so those are duplex units-- they could be on top of each other or side by side-- or townhouse units. Some people call these condos. But these are housing that would be attached in a row house or a townhouse type of development side by side.
[00:06:48.39] That leaves 44% of the housing stock in Ann Arbor as multiple family. That's largely a traditional apartment type of building. But it does include some group housing, fraternities, sororities, although that's a fairly small portion of that.
[00:07:04.42] So as the population of Ann Arbor bulges at both ends-- so that means on the age spectrum, we have almost a guaranteed age cohort of the late teens and 20s as a part of the University of Michigan undergraduate population and somewhat of the graduate population.
[00:07:21.83] But we also have the other bulge of the Baby Boomers. And they're in this community now or gravitating to this community, either having been here to go to school or the community appeals to them, being drawn to Ann Arbor.
[00:07:36.60] How do we approach this housing? Is there a mismatch here? So consistent with the sustainable buildings goal and our sustainability framework, one of the approaches that we should consider is taking the housing stock that we have and adapting it rather than building new housing.
[00:07:55.93] There is a big trend to go to "green" housing. The greenest housing, people would argue, is an existing house in this case. So how do we make the housing stock that we have adapt to this changing demographic?
[00:08:11.19] One of the things that we can do is adapt existing homes to incorporate universal design accessibility features. And we'll learn more about that this evening. But that allows for more houses to be used by more people of different ages and abilities.
[00:08:25.97] We can keep our existing housing affordable by sharing the space in smaller household homes. So as that household size declines, it really frees up bedrooms. It frees up space within these housing units out there. Can we share that space with other people?
[00:08:41.60] And can we support a variety of housing types for different lifestyles? This evening, we're going to hear about accessory dwelling units, such as a type the housing unit that is out there, but really not very well known.
[00:08:56.13] So what we're going to do this evening is we're going to start out with an overview of the changing demographics and the need for age-friendly housing from Karen Kafantaris from AARP.
[00:09:08.02] And then we'll hear three different responses from people who are involved in this adapting of existing homes within Ann Arbor. Ryan Cowmeadow is here from the Housing Bureau for Seniors. Steve Bredernitz who has his own firm, Bredernitz Professional Services, who does a lot of construction work in this area. And Eunice Burns who is a former council member-- and many of you know Eunice, I'm sure-- who is a resident of one of these alternative living situations. So all three of them are going to speak to that.
[00:09:40.68] So as we go through the presentations this evening, some people will have some slides. Some people will not. If you would just hold your questions until the very end, I'll move up to the table up here and take your questions since it's being taped. Back by Ken, there's a microphone. We ask you to step to the microphone to ask your questions. And I will introduce each of the speakers as they come up.
[00:10:04.59] So Karen, if you want to head up this way, I will introduce you. Karen-- and I have a hard time saying her name, Kafantaris-- is in charge of the AARP Livable Communities work here in Michigan. She works throughout the state in bringing education and outreach events on housing and mobility to communities, like us here today, with the goal of helping individuals remain in their own homes and safely maintain their mobility.
[00:10:34.45] Karen is the creator of the AARP Home Fit program, a two-hour seminar that helps individuals who want to remain in their own homes as they age to assess how their home currently fits them and what changes may need to be made as they move forward in their life cycle. And then I would also mention, in 2010, Karen was appointed by the governor to the Complete Streets Advisory Council. So that shows you that link between housing and transportation. So Karen?
[00:11:01.24] [APPLAUSE]
[00:00:00.00]
[00:11:07.05] KAREN KAFANTARIS: Good evening. Thank you, Wendy. That was a very nice introduction. Thank you for inviting me tonight. And just as important, thank you for all coming. I was talking with some of the other speakers when I first got here about the cold. I said that emotionally, I am totally done with winter. And Mother Nature is not stepping up to the plate and moving on for me. So if I had been home, I would have been wrapped up in my blanket on the chair.
[00:11:39.91] So three weeks ago, we held a conference here in Ann Arbor on the campus of University of Michigan around the subject of age-friendly communities. And we had over 190 people from a variety of sectors. We had city leadership. We had both public and privates. We had developers. We had people from education, from the University. We had the aging network. We had a lot of different sectors. So there's a lot of people who are interested in this topic.
[00:12:21.68] I'd like to take just a minute and talk about what we mean when we say age-friendly communities. AARP has been involved in livable communities work really since our inception in 1958, when we were founded by our founder, Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus. She was talking all about universal design. She had a whole set up at the World's Fair with the accessible house. It was quite amazing that the things she was talking about back in 1958 we're still talking about today.
[00:13:02.00] Now it seems like people are getting serious. And we're getting serious because our population is aging, and its aging quickly.
[00:13:13.09] So livable communities in AARP's world for a long time has really been talked about the 65-year-old individual an older. Age from the community really is looking at it more in the context of communities for all ages.
[00:13:34.40] When you're making changes, when you're making infrastructure changes, or changes to services, it's looking at making changes that will serve the entire population and not just the older adults. Some things have to be just for the older adult, because of that, just like we build schools for children.
[00:13:55.22] So the age-friendly committees whole concept or term was coined by the World Health Organization as a designation that a community could get. And AARP last year became a partner with the World Health Organization in becoming the North America granter of that designation for the World Health Organization.
[00:14:19.63] So it's a context of a five-year cycle-- of doing an assessment of the community, creating a plan to improve in a series of eight areas, and then executing that plan. So it's a five-year cycle. And then evaluating how you've done on your plan.
[00:14:39.81] And then again, creating another plan and another cycle of executing that plan. So it's a continual cycle. It gives a community a framework in how to plan for your community.
[00:14:55.44] So at the conference, I made a statement, and I think it's very true, that the dramatic aging of our population is going to be one of America's greatest challenges in the 21st century. Our demographics are changing, and they're changing rapidly thanks to the Baby Boomers.
[00:15:16.89] But we're not the only ones who are aging. We are aging in Michigan. We're aging around the United States. But the world is aging. There are many countries who are aging much faster than we are. So the United States likes to be ahead in all things. This is one thing that's good we're not ahead in.
[00:15:36.76] In 2030, which sounds like a long time from now, but when you look at it, it's only 17 years, the percentage of our population that is over 65 today will increase by 2030 by 40%. One in every five group people will be age 65 or older. That's a big increase in the number of 65 and older driving. It's a large increase in a lot of the services that are going to be needed, be it medical, be it a transportation. Housing stock is one you talked about changes.
[00:16:20.56] So we're getting older. And what does that mean for our communities? We talked just a second about a few of those. But it really means that our communities must learn to successfully adapt and accommodate, to make changes in infrastructure and services.
[00:16:34.35] The key thing to keep in mind, like I said before, is that we need to make these changes for all ages. Sorry, I have a cold. And the changes I'm talking about-- I'm not talking about tearing down a community and rebuilding. As Wendy said, the most sustainable thing to do is to repurpose. And you can repurpose a home to be-- I think you're talking about not co-housing, but HomeShare tonight.
[00:17:08.77] So changing the infrastructure of the things we already have. Making changes to services we already have.
[00:17:20.96] And there doesn't need to be a generation clash. I think that for so long, there has been the idea that if we do things for seniors, we're not doing them for the younger generation, and one is taking away from the other. And it doesn't have to be that way. It's a different way of looking through it and a different lens.
[00:17:43.03] So if you think about it, a curb cut for someone using a wheelchair is easier for a mom pushing a stroller. At home that has a zero step entrance is easier to get through if you're using a walker. But it's also easier to get through if you're pushing a stroller. And it's easier for people to get large items that they're carrying in and out of your house. A crosswalk that's safe for an 80-year-old is safe for eight-year-old and everywhere in between.
[00:18:19.71] So since we're talking specifically about housing tonight, I want to challenge a myth that's out there. And that myth is that as people get old and retire, they like to pack up and move out of their home and move to Florida, Arizona, somewhere warmer. Of course, on a night like this when I'm tired of this winter, that sounds really good.
[00:18:44.35] But in reality, the data provided by the Brookings Institution shows that while 25% to 30% of the 20-somethings move every year, only about 4% of people over 65 move each year. This challenges the conventional wisdom that the older adults, especially those who are exiting the workforce, are choosing to move to new locations for their retirement.
[00:19:16.24] Now AARP loves to do surveys. For those of you who are AARP members, you probably get those surveys on a regular basis. So we did a survey back in 2001. And some of the questions asked were about remaining in your own home. And back then, 89% of individuals 50 and over said they want to stay in their own home, the current home that they're in, as the age, for the rest of their life. 96% wanted to just make sure that they stay in their own community.
[00:19:48.50] Now in 2011, we did another survey, 10 years later. And we used the same questions. And guess what? 89% of people 50 and over wanted to stay in their own home, the current home, for the rest of their lives. And 97% wanted to stay in their own community.
[00:20:06.69] So we can't always get what we want, because things change. Sometimes there are things that happen, and you aren't able to stay in your own home. And there's a lot of thoughts about that. A lot of thoughts about what older adults should do as they get older. But we have to take into account what they want, their wants and dreams.
[00:20:31.30] So too often, today's housing stock is expensive. It lacks accessible features. It's not convenient to essential services. All of which make it difficult for people to remain in their homes as the data shows that they wish.
[00:20:46.53] In Ann Arbor, I know there's at least the perception that the housing stock is expensive, either to rent or to own. I have paid a lot of rent on student housing when my kids were in school here. And when you got nine kids in the house and you're paying $600 each a month, that's a lot of money.
[00:21:09.30] Much of your housing stock is older and with few or no accessible features. So communities need to create strategies on focusing on ensuring today's housing stock is affordable, accessible, and connected to essential services.
[00:21:27.56] But strategies also need to be considered that are forward-looking-- and Ann Arbor is doing that with this forum-- that emphasize the importance of building and preserving a range of housing options-- subsidized, supportive, and market rate-- enough sufficient to meet the future demand and located in mixed use, transit-oriented areas that promote independence and mobility.
[00:21:55.17] Figuring out solutions and creating strategies will not only take creativity, but it will mean working across a broad spectrum of unique coalitions, involving non-profits, government, foundations, business, and engaged citizens. It's really going to take a village. It's really going to take everybody.
[00:22:17.57] As Wendy pointed out, one of the speakers at the conference-- I don't know if she said this or not-- but what she was talking about, one of the speakers at the conference pointed out the clash we have going on between our housing stock across the United States and the needs of the Baby Boomers and the Millennials. Meaning both generations tend to be one or two person households rather than the family of the mom, dad, 2.3 kids and the dog. Needing a smaller household.
[00:22:58.66] As the people get older, it's harder to care of a household. If you can use some of the programs-- the HomeShare or various things that are out there, ideas, concepts that are out there-- and make it, acceptable is not the right word, but more commonplace to share your home, we can sort of repurpose and make those homes for those older adults more affordable. Because we know that they're living on a smaller income. You've got someone in the home hopefully that can help shovel the snow and take out the trash and do the things that gets harder to do as you get older.
[00:23:47.07] So Ryan's going to talk about HomeShare. There's a number of other things. In Lansing, we have a co-housing thing going on, which has been very interesting. I don't know if you have any of that going on in Ann Arbor, but it's very interesting. Ours has kind of started and sputtered and started again. And then we have Steve who's going to talk about accessibility. I'm looking forward to seeing your presentation.
[00:24:20.40] But I think what we have to keep in mind is that there's no magic bullet. It's not one or two things. It's a lot of different things, a lot of different solutions, creative solutions. Sometimes the creative solutions are poo pooed from the beginning. They're too far out of the box.
[00:24:39.89] But you know what? What happens is you put that creative solution out there. You have a few people willing to do the HomeShare program. People start seeing that it's working. It becomes more acceptable. Now many more people are willing to try it. And then suddenly it's oh yeah, we do that. It becomes common place. And it takes time.
[00:25:07.98] So it's not an easy thing. Change is always hard. But we need to think outside the box. And we need to be creative, and we need to put those solutions out there. They may be shot down but we can't stop putting them out there.
[00:25:25.51] Another thing that needs to be kept in mind-- I think I'm running out of time here. I told Wendy I'd try to keep this shorter than I had planned, because I get up here and start talking. Wendy talked a little bit about is in Ann Arbor, you have pretty darn good transportation options. But transportation options are incredibly important.
[00:25:49.78] You can have the most accessible home-- wide doorways, a bathroom that's accessible for a wheelchair, all the bells and whistles. But if you have someone who can't get out of the house and go do the things that they want to do and they need to do, all you really have is very accessible prison. And you have the people who are lonely and isolated, and we know all the things that happen with that.
[00:26:21.17] So Ann Arbor's done a lot of great things. As I was working to put together this conference with some of the people who are in this room actually, I got the chance to meet Wendy and Steve Powers and Kirk Westfall. And Ann Arbor's doing a lot of things.
[00:26:38.21] And I can tell you that I worked in a lot of communities. And a lot of the reason that Ann Arbor is doing great things is that you have leadership that is willing to do it, who can do it. You have people who are strategic thinkers, big picture thinkers. But you also have the people who can make that big picture thinking a reality.
[00:27:04.26] A lot of communities don't have both. They don't have the big picture thinker, or they don't have the wherewithal to make it happen. So I want to congratulate the city leadership in really being forward-thinking and doing well. So thank you. And [INAUDIBLE] looking forward to the rest of the evening.
[00:27:26.53] [APPLAUSE]
[00:00:00.00]
[00:27:33.86] WENDY RAMPSON: So next up, we have Ryan Cowmeadow. And Ryan is a licensed clinical social worker. He's coordinated the Home Share program, as you've heard, with the University of Michigan Health System's Housing Bureau for Seniors. He's done that since 2007.
[00:27:49.72] He's also currently the vice president of the National Shared Housing Resource Center, which is a clearinghouse for shared housing programs nationwide. And he also teaches. He's a faculty member at Eastern Michigan University, teaching undergraduate and graduate level social work and gerontology courses. So Ryan?
[00:28:09.39] RYAN COWMEADOW: Thank you, Wendy.
[00:28:11.33] [APPLAUSE]
[00:00:00.00]
[00:28:14.44] RYAN COWMEADOW: OK, so I'm here to talk to you about Home Share, which is near and dear to my heart. And I have about 10 minutes to do it in, so I'm going to try to keep this moving pretty quickly. I do have a PowerPoint presentation for you.
[00:28:24.34] I'm going to be talking to you about the goal of the Home Share program. I'm going to talk to you about the benefits. I'll give you a brief history of shared housing in general in the United States. And then we'll have some time for questions and answers at the end. And when you talk about shared housing, there's always questions that are burning.
[00:28:39.15] So to get started, the HomeShare program is part of the University of Michigan Health System's Housing Bureau for Seniors. And the Housing Bureau has been around since 1983. And the goal, we have several different social work programs that help older adults remain in safe, affordable and appropriate housing as long as they like. To that end, HomeShare is one of the programs-- actually, an original program of the Housing Bureau for Seniors.
[00:29:02.29] And you see our goal statement here. HomeShare program is to enable senior homeowners age 55 and over to remain stable in their housing of choice by providing a safe, screened, and compatible housemate who can help by providing companionship, some economic assistance, and even some chore assistance to the homeowner.
[00:29:21.85] And as Karen just said, 89% of people want to stay in their own homes. And HomeShare is a way for them to do that.
[00:29:29.95] Home sharing is not a new concept. It actually began in the 1970s. It really hit its apex in the 1980s. And at its high point, there were about 200 programs throughout the United States. And at this time, there's only about 65.
[00:29:43.89] Once funded through the Older Americans Act, funding dried up, and programs were sent out there to do their own thing and find their own resources to continue. And many were unable to do that. We were one of about 10 programs in the state of Michigan. And right now, we are the only program that's a shared housing program in the state of Michigan.
[00:30:01.20] But through the help of the National Shared Housing Resource Center of which I'm the vice president and ALA, which is Affordable Living for the Aging based in Los Angeles, we're actually working to put together a national campaign to bring shared housing to the forefront once again. Because it is sustainable. It is a diverse housing option.
[00:30:20.37] Two types of shared housing situations are coordinated by my program. Oh, I just shot the bullet there. We have peer to peer arrangements. And these are where two seniors share a dwelling together. And this can be two or more seniors.
[00:30:33.05] We also have inter-generational HomeShare relationships. This is when we have anyone age 18 and over who shares a home with a senior. So here you go. The most famous example of a peer to peer shared housing arrangement, right?
[00:30:47.59] And what I also have here for you is two actual program participants. You see Ken and Carol. And they're both participants in the HomeShare program. Ken was a graduate student that came to the University of Michigan and wanted to save on housing costs. And Carol was someone that lived close to campus and just needed a little bit of extra help around the house.
[00:31:06.45] So we were able to match them up. And he was there for his two year career at the graduate school. And you can see one of his duties was to help out in the garden. And for that, he paid her a modest rent and saved, we calculated, over $8,000 in housing over the course of two years. Which is big when you think about student loans these days.
[00:31:25.46] Many benefits from the program. We have our homeowners, who we call home providers. And you'll see we have benefits such as companionship, to help reduce aspects of social isolation that may be experienced. Helps provide a sense of security and well being. Extra eyes and ears around the home. Knowing that someone's going to be coming home in case there's an emergency.
[00:31:46.73] Financial assistance. Our housemates pay a modest rent to the homeowners-- somewhere in the range of $300 to $450 per month, typically including utilities, in most cases. Provide some sense of civic engagement. You're helping somebody else out that needs affordable housing.
[00:32:04.67] Connection to the community. We work with people that come from all around the globe to Ann Arbor and to Washtenaw County. And it's nice to have an expert of the locality living right down the hall from you, to help get you assimilated and used to the surroundings.
[00:32:18.33] And also, we provide chore assistance. And I want to stress that this is non-personal care. But this is the type of things we do in our own homes on a daily basis anyways. It's taking out the trash. It's maybe cooking and sharing a meal together. It's raking the leaves in the fall and shoveling the snow in the winter. Maybe it's a ride to a doctor's appointment here and there. So there's multiple benefits for shared housing for our homeowners.
[00:32:42.39] For seekers-- those are the people that are looking for housing. We call them HomeShare seekers. Many of the benefits are the same. Companionship. A lot of the folks that come to me say, I just don't like living alone. I get a little bit reclusive when I'm by myself, and it's nice to have someone to talk to.
[00:32:57.64] Connection to the community. Again, if you're new to the area, it really is helpful to have a local expert there close by. Civic engagement. Helping out a senior homeowner who may need a little bit of assistance around the home.
[00:33:09.82] You get a safe, comfortable and home-like environment. So you're not living in a dorm or an institutional setting. You have an actual home. You've got a front yard and backyard, in most cases.
[00:33:18.71] And it's affordable housing in a community where housing is oftentimes not affordable. For 2013, the fair market rent for a single bedroom apartment in Washtenaw County is $760. And that doesn't include anything. That's no utilities whatsoever.
[00:33:34.73] And again HomeShare can offer rents in the range of $300 to $450 a month, including all utilities. So it really is an affordable housing option.
[00:33:44.73] And there's so many benefits for the community, too. We're using available housing stock instead of creating more housing that's maybe not necessary. It provides affordable living, economic security to our homeowners. It provides maintained homes and yards. And it helps to create a sense of community.
[00:34:02.33] So I'm going to walk you through our process really quickly here. Three main phases, and there's many, many steps that go into each phase. But the application phase, introduction phase, and also we have our contracting and ongoing support phases.
[00:34:14.19] All of the people that come to the program to enroll-- home seekers and home providers-- all go through the same process. So we begin with our application phase. And you'll see we start by having everyone that comes to the program complete our five page application. This is very detailed. All the way down to obvious things like are you a smoker down to what's your home temperature preference.
[00:34:35.87] We do a character reference check on everyone that comes to the program of three people who've known the applicant for one year or longer who are unrelated to them. And we ask several important questions, including would you consider living with this person yourself? If the answer is no, probably someone else wouldn't want to live with them.
[00:34:51.32] We do a criminal background check in the state of Michigan. It is through the ICHAT system. So we pull up some incredible things from the '60s and '70s. And we do have limitations on what we can do. If you have a felony record, we're not going to be able to be helpful to you. We're working with potentially vulnerable populations here.
[00:35:07.94] And also, we do a personal interview for all of our seekers where we sit down and get to know them better, after we review all of this information. We learn about their ideal shared housing housemate.
[00:35:16.29] And we also do a home visit with all of our homeowners. We can see how they function in their home, what they could use help with. And we also get to understand who their ideal housemate is as well.
[00:35:27.02] In our introduction phase, this is where we actually sit down and look at all the different information we've gathered about our applicants. We look at up to 17 different areas of compatibility when making referrals.
[00:35:39.72] When we have what we think could be a potentially good match, we'll call our applicants up and share just a little bit of information about the person. We're a social worker program, so we protect as much confidentiality as we absolutely can. But we want to give you an idea of who the person is.
[00:35:53.18] If they sound like a good fit to you, we'll then facilitate an in-person introduction. This typically takes place in the home provider's home. And this is when the seeker gets to see the space. They get to interview each other and ask any questions they may have. We're there to facilitate. Sometimes things are hard to talk about-- about chores needed, maybe how much rent is. And we're also there to remind people this is just an information gathering time. No decisions must be made at this point.
[00:36:18.20] After the introduction is completed, we'll follow up with them several days later and see, what are you thinking? Does this seem like the right fit? Do you have more questions we can get answers for you?
[00:36:26.53] And if both parties want to move forward, we move into our next phase. If either party is a little bit reluctant or reticent, we go back to the drawing board.
[00:36:35.53] So our contracting and ongoing support phase, this is where we draft our month to month contract, which provides a great deal of flexibility for our homeowners and for the home seekers. We provide ongoing mediation and negotiation support, if it's ever needed. Should an issue arise, they can call me up. I'll come sit down at the table, and we'll work through whatever issue we can.
[00:36:54.43] If for some reason we can't work through an issue or if it's a graduate student who's just finished their program and moving on, we also help with match dissolution support.
[00:37:04.70] So all of our homeowners set their own prices for the HomeShare program. But we use this as a guideline. We have them pick a base rent. And in this case, you'll see at the top right hand of the screen a contribution guideline of $400.
[00:37:18.15] So if someone came to the program and wanted to charge $400 a month and they wanted zero hours of assistance per week, the rent would be $400. If they were looking for one hour of assistance per week or four hours per month total-- maybe it's just taking out the trash or running the vacuum around here and there once a week, something like that-- we calculate that as a value of $10 per hour.
[00:37:37.41] So that would reduce the overall rent by $40 for that month, bringing it down to $360. So on and so forth until you see a maximum of about 10 hours per week of chore assistance, being 40 hours per month, which is a lot when you think about it. It would equate to $400 off of base rent, or in this case, a rent of zero or a complete service exchange.
[00:37:56.68] Very flexible in how we do this. Our homeowners are in control, and we're just there to help them along through the process.
[00:38:03.24] General requirements. HomeShare is not right for everyone, as I'm sure you can imagine. But in general, you have to have financial, physical, and emotional stability to be able to participate in shared housing. It's not just about a house, it's about a relationship.
[00:38:17.40] You have to be able to be flexible, and you have to be able to compromise. And when we look at the homes, you have to actually have a qualifying bedroom. I work with a lot of homeowners who have a basement that's been converted, and they'd like to share that. But they don't have any egress window.
[00:38:30.72] And unfortunately, we can't help you there. You have to have at least two forms of egress and a closet to be qualifying as a bedroom. You have to have access to a kitchen facility and to a private or shared bathroom.
[00:38:42.78] I want to leave you with some fast facts about HomeShare to carry with you and perhaps spread the word. We've been around for over 30 years at this point. We receive about 300 inquiries into the program every single year. At any given time, we have about 50 matches in place throughout Washtenaw County, which means that over 100 people are housed through our program.
[00:39:04.23] Each year, we make about 50 new matches. And I'm particularly proud of this one. Every month, the HomeShare program brings over $17,500 into the homes of local seniors. It's pretty significant.
[00:39:19.04] Additionally, about 400 hours of chore assistance are providing each month to local seniors. And if we calculate that at our $10 per hour volunteer rate, that's a savings of about $4,000 per month.
[00:39:29.92] On average, our matches last about 16 months in length. But our longest was well over 14 years. Same provider and seeker.
[00:39:38.90] And I like to leave with this one. A mutually beneficial program that just makes sense, but it also makes dollars and sense. It's truly sustainable. It's truly something that most communities could do relatively easily. But for some reason, they haven't. And we're so lucky that here in Washtenaw County we have had the support to continue this program for the last 30 years.
[00:39:57.36] So my contact information. You can barely see my email address. But I have cards. If you'd like one afterwards, I'd be happy to give it to you. Thank you.
[00:40:06.58] [APPLAUSE]
[00:00:00.00]
[00:40:13.47] WENDY RAMPSON: Wow, I love these. I learn so much. So our next speaker is Steve Bredernitz. And he has over 20 years of experience in home improvement services. So he's a certified aging in place specialist. And that is a designation that's granted from the National Association of Home Builders.
[00:40:30.81] He's also a certified green professional. And that designation's from the National Association of Builders and Remodelers. And he also teaches part time at Washtenaw Community College. He teaches remodeling and construction classes. So some of the things that you see today, if you're more interested, I think you can probably sign up for Steve's classes. So Steve?
[00:40:50.80] [APPLAUSE]
[00:40:56.55] STEVE BREDERNITZ: Thank you, Wendy. I'm Steve Bredernitz, owner of Bredernitz Professional Services, as Wendy mentioned. I own a locally based remodeling company here in Washtenaw County, in Saline. We remodel kitchens, bathrooms, basements. I'm also a part-time instructor.
[00:41:17.61] Here to talk about aging in place, one of my favorite topics. Aging in place, what does that really mean? Well, it enhances the quality of life by focusing on home comfort and safety. It ensures that people of all ages who plan to stay in their homes as they age make the necessary modifications now to ensure their ability to age in place.
[00:41:45.30] Some interesting statistics from AARP. More than four in five Americans 45 years of age or older say they would like to remain in their homes for as long as possible, yet only one in six homeowners has made any modifications that would allow them to be safe and comfortable in their home as they age.
[00:42:08.03] And we see that a lot, my wife in particular. She has degenerative arthritis. And she's had both of her hips replaced. And it came on suddenly. In less than two years, she had both her hips replaced. So we had to make modifications to our home, such as grab bars and other modifications in the bathroom to be able to support that.
[00:42:32.17] The big question that everybody asks me when I go to someone's house and we start talking about aging in place, they are always, how do I get started? And I think that this slide kind of goes over a lot of what you can do.
[00:42:47.24] But the big thing is begin thinking about what you can do in your current home to allow you to safely remain in that home for as long as you choose. And that's a big concept that sometimes people have a hard time getting over.
[00:43:03.43] The second thing that's important is, what do you like to do? For me, it's woodworking. My wife says I'm a putterer. So I'm out in the yard. I'm out in the shed. I'm woodworking. I'm also using computers. She likes to cook. She likes to do a little bit of the yard work, but mowing lawns and that kind of stuff she's really not into.
[00:43:24.76] So when you start talking about aging in place, you want to talk about what do you like to do, and what do I need to do to my home to continue to do those kinds of things?
[00:43:36.40] Third thing, who do you talk to? OK, I've identified kind of what I need to do. I've identified what I'd like to do in my home. Now who should I start talking to to make those modifications? Well, builders and remodelers, people like me, certified aging in place people, occupational therapists, architects, or landscaping people are good people to talk to on those topics.
[00:44:04.29] When you get somebody like me coming into a house-- I walk into a building and I start evaluating. I start looking at lights. I start looking at hand rails. I start looking at flooring. And then I start thinking, if I'm in a wheelchair, what would work and what would not work in this home?
[00:44:24.12] So these are some of the questions that I usually ask when I start going through a client's house. Has the home been properly maintained? Can a ramp be installed in the main door? Does a home require upgrading? I've had to replace a service panel to remodel a kitchen in a 1990s, because it was that badly done.
[00:44:45.27] What type of flooring is in the home? We know that if we're in a wheelchair, tile or hardwood flooring is probably better than shag carpeting. How many of you remember shag carpeting?
[00:44:57.17] Is the bathroom safe from slip and falls? What's the biggest thing in a bathroom? What's the biggest danger in a bathroom? When I go like this to get up and over that tub wall. I'm now bare foot, standing on tile on one foot. If I'm a little bit wobbly, I slip and fall.
[00:45:16.81] Is there adequate lighting in the home? Can a wheelchair or walker be used in the home? Those are some of the basic questions. I've got a whole list of them. But these are some of the main ones that I usually start going over with with people.
[00:45:31.46] When I teach remodeling at Washtenaw, a lot of times we get into-- especially like a bathroom class. How many of you have a bathroom faucet that has the single faucet handle that you grab and you move around? Yeah. Yeah, and everybody hates those things. And as we age, what gets to be hard to do?
[00:45:53.10] My wife, as I mentioned, has got the degenerative arthritis. It's harder for her to grab things, on top of having her hips replaced. So one of the things that we'd like to do levers for doors, but also for faucets. I want hot and cold faucets that I can move easily with my hands.
[00:46:17.15] How many of you have an entrance like this into your house? Yeah, lots of us do. I do, too. We've got the concrete step coming up. We've got another step, and then we go up to the concrete landing on the porch. And then we've got yet another step to go into the house. Doesn't sound so bad, if you're 10 years old. But when you age and if you've had knee replacements or hip replacements, those steps get to be a drag.
[00:46:42.94] So how can we fix this? What's an easy solution to deal with this? Make the steps a little bit easier or palatable to go up. But more importantly, add rails. What's railing? Railing is a sign of security. Whether it's on a deck or whether it's on steps like this, it's a sign of security. And it needs to be built in a way that I can lean against it. It's not going to fall over. And I can use it as a guide coming up the steps, whether I'm carrying a bag of groceries, carrying my grandchild, whatever it is, and then get up to the door.
[00:47:29.48] Here's another typical entrance. How many of you have an entrance like that? How can we make this a little bit easier to go into? In this case, there's a lot of concrete there. Well, what we do is bring in the landscaping architect and not bad, huh?
[00:47:54.72] So with a little bit of design and a little bit of thought, we removed a lot of the concrete and installed, in this case, a paver brick patio system. But more importantly, we've taken those steps out and created a nice flow coming into the house. So someone in a walker, as Karen mentioned, pushing a baby stroller, these types of things and a wheelchair, you've got access right into the house.
[00:48:23.20] The typical way to do it is a ramp. And ramps work for a lot of houses, but don't work for every house. There are very specific codes associated with ramps that you have to adhere to. And sometimes the lot just doesn't allow for a ramp.
[00:48:44.30] So to go to something like this can be much easier. Obviously, one is a little bit more expensive than the other. But I think we'd all agree that with spring being late the way it is, that looks pretty nice.
[00:49:04.45] Bathrooms. We do a lot of bathrooms. And the things with bathrooms are how do we make it so that everyone can use the bathroom, like with universal design, from the little kids up to us older people. What do we need to do? Grab bars. Grab bars are the simplest things to do.
[00:49:29.56] It allows you use the bathroom and be able to keep yourself from falling, give you something to grab a hold to in case you are going to fall or to get up and off the toilet or in the shower, whatever it is.
[00:49:45.72] It's hard to tell from this picture, but that is a wall mounted sink that allows you access underneath with a wheelchair. Pretty easy thing. But if you're starting to talk about aging in place and you're looking at universal design and your remodeling your bathroom, putting in that vanity cabinet, if you're 24 months down the road and you've got to have a wheelchair, that vanity cabinet isn't going to work for you. A pedestal sink probably won't work either where this sink would work.
[00:50:22.96] What we also do is take out that tub shower. And in this case, it was tiled. Notice the tiling on the floor of the shower unit. There is a seat in there. And the barrier between the diamond tile and the square tile inside the shower, that's actually a rubber fold down where you can actually roll right across that, and it'll pop back up and allow the water to not run out into the bathroom. It just kind of hits that and comes back.
[00:50:53.24] So if you were thinking about it in the terms of a standard shower, that's the curve, or what we refer to as the curve.
[00:51:05.89] It's hard to get excited about toilets. But we do a lot of toilets. And it's a simple thing to go to a comfort height toilet. I've had homeowners, senior citizens buy a new house, and one of the first things they do is they contract us to come in and take out all the toilets and put in all comfort height toilets. I've actually been hugged coming through the door with the new toilets.
[00:51:29.87] The difference is an inch and a half. I know it sounds strange. The difference is like an inch and a half. But if you've had your hips replaced or your knees replaced-- one of my associates just had both his knees done, both at once. He sent me a picture of the scars that are around his knee. These are the kinds of things that is an easy change to make. And it really makes it more comfortable in the home.
[00:51:55.92] The other thing that we do, especially in tile shower units, is grab bars and inserts. Grab bars are almost standard items when you're tiling a shower nowadays.
[00:52:13.28] Again, a typical bathroom. Vanity on the right, the toilet, and then the standard tub shower. You take out the tub shower, and you put in an insert with the grab bars and a walk-in shower unit. Very easy.
[00:52:29.51] How many of you take baths? Very few people take baths these days. We don't have enough time.
[00:52:38.05] The other thing, kitchen microwaves. When we're remodeling kitchens, the standard place to put a microwave is over the range. As we get older, doing this our muscle mass and our shoulders-- my wife's already experiencing this. She puts a casserole dish in the microwave, and I end up taking it out of the microwave. And a lot of times, I'm doing both chores. We end up moving the microwave down to the counters.
[00:53:08.95] Laundry. A lot of people have basement laundry facilities. And stairs are a drag as you get older. So the other thing that we talk to people about is where do you want your laundry room, and what kind of washing machines do you want to have?
[00:53:34.41] One of the last things is communication. Emergency communication is a real big thing. My mother is recovering from cancer surgery. And I just got her the one on the right here last month, which is the Life Alert thing, because she lives by herself. And your program is something that I'm going to talk to her about.
[00:53:59.79] I know I'm running out of time. Lots of light. We just did a kitchen. We doubled the amount of light in the kitchen. You need lots of light. You need lots of light. For me, I'm a big advocate of entrances, you got to have a lot of light. I like entrance lighting on photocells so they come on automatically, go off automatically.
[00:54:21.44] Bathrooms, kitchens aren't listed there, hallways, stairways-- another big area. Code says I need a light both at the top and the bottom of the stairway. I want adequate lighting in those areas.
[00:54:36.66] Conclusion. Decide what you like to do and what needs to be done to your home so that you can stay in it. If I'm going to remodel it, how can I remodel it with future needs in mind? Work with qualified people to make the necessary changes to your home so you can stay there and enjoy the rest of your life. Thank you.
[00:54:57.66] [APPLAUSE]
[00:00:00.00]
[00:55:12.64] WENDY RAMPSON: Thank you, Steve. A lot of things to think about. So next we have Eunice Burns. And I think many of you probably know Eunice. But for those of you who don't, she is a well known public figure in Ann Arbor. She has served on the Ann Arbor city council, on the planning commission, which I actually didn't know until I saw your biography, the downtown development authority, and the Huron River Watershed Council. She was one of the co-founders of the Huron River Day. So she has a long, long tradition of public service to this community.
[00:55:46.63] She began her career as a teacher, but is probably most well known for her work in the real estate industry. She is a realtor. And she now lives with one of her daughters in an accessory dwelling unit in the off Broadway neighborhood. So I'll let her tell you where the off Broadway neighborhood is. Thanks, Eunice.
[00:56:05.49] [APPLAUSE]
[00:00:00.00]
[00:56:16.71] EUNICE BURNS: Well, you've heard a lot about some of the things that I have in my home and some that I don't. But I am going to talk about three generation homes instead of just two. All of us have certainly been in two generation homes, either as a child or as a parent. But probably not as many have been fortunate enough to live in a three generation home. But I'm one of those.
[00:56:55.89] When I was growing up, my grandfather lived with us. And I have two vivid memories of that time, although he died when I was nine. The first was when he used to put me in his lap and say a poem, which was "there was a little girl with a curl right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very, very good. But when she was bad, she was horrid."
[00:57:28.05] The other is a rite, and that's R-I-T-E, which I don't know how many cultures have it anymore. But when my grandfather died, his casket was in our living room. And neighbors would come in and talk, gossip probably, have some tea or coffee, I suppose. And it was my first brush with death.
[00:58:00.38] Now, perhaps we're coming full circle in planning for that third generation with the choice of living with your family in a familiar community setting. For over 20 years, I have been in a three generation home, although this year, we're back to a two generation home, because Jamie went off to college.
[00:58:26.25] We began to plan for the future when I was alone in a house with four bedrooms, bath and a half, two car garage, big yard. And my daughter, her husband, and their three children were in a three bedroom house, one bath, no playroom, and a tiny yard. It was son-in-law who first said, we should live together.
[00:59:02.33] It made a great deal of sense. So they sold their house. They bought my house. And with some updates, we lived in what had been my house, which my husband and I had bought in 1960.
[00:59:21.88] And Wendy said I should tell you where off Broadway was. It's near north campus, right off Broadway. It's a little street called [? Harbal, ?] which has about 12 houses on it. And it's a wonderful neighborhood.
[00:59:42.60] And my husband and I bought that house in 1960. And I'm still in it.
[00:59:49.65] Now Laurie, my daughter, had been asked to write an article for a university publication about living together. Well, Laurie and John's friends sometimes said to her, you live with your what? But my friends said, oh, you're so lucky. And I am and was.
[01:00:18.47] I particularly liked a quote from my nine-year-old grandson at that time. He said, I like living with my grandmother, because instead of going on vacation to see her, I can go on vacation with her. And we did. I often took them, in the summer, up to the cottage, just the kids and I. And we swam in the waves, and we played games, and did puzzles. And we also shared jobs. I didn't do all the cooking and dishes. They helped.
[01:00:57.83] But I still needed a private space other than my bedroom at the main house. So my youngest daughter who is an architect designed an apartment for me across the breezeway in the two car garage. While I may tell people that I live in the old garage, there's no old garage feeling at all.
[01:01:28.65] I moved into my separate apartment in December 1996. We still have family dinners or still had family dinners. And we still do once in a while, maybe once a week. We play games together. And I did a lot of carpooling, taking the kids to school and picking them up. And the doors between us are either open or they're certainly not locked.
[01:02:03.30] I'm glad I was there when my son-in-law was diagnosed with brain cancer. And he died in 2003. Laurie could go to work and not worry, because I was there to help and to watch. Since then, Laurie has remarried and left. But fortunately, my youngest daughter, the architect, and her husband were in town, and they moved in so I could stay in my space.
[01:02:39.34] What are the downsides? Well, I don't know of any from my standpoint. I've learned to like different music. I've even been to the Blind Pig. And I've learned to tolerate the F and S words, even though I had my mouth washed out with soap when I was growing up.
[01:03:05.12] But there were obstacles in building. And there will be obstacles if a family member is no longer there. In building, I could not have a real stove. I use a two burner hot plate and a microwave convection oven, which is perfectly adequate for me. And I do have the option of going over to the main kitchen and using that if I really need to. So it works fine. But there's no real stove in my apartment.
[01:03:46.50] This unit, if a family member is not around to live in it, it cannot be rented at this point. And yet, it would be ideal for a nurse, a graduate student, a caretaker. It's within walking distance of the hospital, of both campuses, and of downtown.
[01:04:13.38] If we are truly talking about sustainability, we should be sure there are no obstacles in using our resources for the good of all our people. I looked up the definition of sustainability in the Oxford English Dictionary. There's about four pages of definitions there.
[01:04:39.05] But they talk about not only sustaining resources and energy, but also sustainability of living and the support of life. "To keep a person or a community, the mind, spirit, and so forth from failing or giving way." And I think that's terribly important that we remember that.
[01:05:06.52] I'm sorry about my voice.
[01:05:09.80] Our population in Ann Arbor is aging, as we've heard. And many of us are living longer. And we will not all want to live as I do or to live in a home with only senior citizens. We will need more ways to sustain our mind and spirit.
[01:05:33.41] My solution is one that is difficult to realize now. I hope the city takes notice. We need this option. In looking at our housing stock, certainly there are many large houses in single family neighborhoods. If the owners wish to do so, there should not be obstacles to add an accessory apartment.
[01:06:01.63] Most times, the footprint of the house will scarcely be changed, if at all. And the rent from the apartment may be the way that someone can stay in their home longer. Or they could live in the apartment and rent out their house. It would make better use of some of our housing stock. It's another choice. And choice is a word that I think of a lot-- choice in how you can live your later lives.
[01:06:40.10] And I guess I would stop with just one bit of advice, is that, for everyone, you should start thinking about it not when you're 80 or 90, but when you're maybe 55. I guess you're considered a senior citizen. But think about what do you want to do when you grow older? And just examine all the options that are out there. And there are quite a few. But maybe we'll have some more now that you can look at, too.
[01:07:14.05] So look at your choices before it's time to move in. Thank you.
[01:07:20.68] [APPLAUSE]
[01:07:24.39] AUDIENCE: Eunice, I was very inspired by what you had to say. So I have questions, because I'm coming on facing that myself, and I want to stay where I'm at. And I wonder, you said there's obstacles to people doing that. What are they, and how can we move to overcome them?
[01:07:47.15] EUNICE BURNS: The obstacles right now are the zoning. And I think it wouldn't be too hard to change it. But we tried about eight or 10 years ago to make-- what do you call it-- accessory apartments. And we were turned down by the city council at that time.
[01:08:21.20] But I think we should all keep pushing our city council to change those rules so that we can have accessory apartments in single family without any problem.
[01:08:36.87] WENDY RAMPSON: So since zoning tends to be a little mysterious to many people, let me explain a little bit about what Eunice is talking about. Eunice and her family were able to do their unit because she talked about they can traverse between the units. But normally, the zoning right now in any type of single family residential district, it only allows an accessory dwelling unit if you obtain a special exception use approval from the planning commission. So for the average person, that's a pretty tall order to get your plans together, a contractor, and then go to the planning commission. Let your neighbors know, because there'd be a public hearing before they could approve that. Although the planning commission did recently approve an accessory dwelling unit in the northeast part of the city.
[01:09:28.20] The proposal that Eunice talked about from 10 years ago was to try to open up that requirement. Still have restrictions for these ADUs we call them, Accessory Dwelling Units, it would have allowed for smaller units to be incorporated into single family districts without having to go to planning commission. But they would have to meet certain standards, size. They could only be occupied by a certain number of people.
[01:09:56.48] We had a couple of provisions to try to address. In this community, the concern was that people would take homes and then willy-nilly convert them to duplexes and have rental housing with no oversight. These are always intended to be owner occupied types of units.
[01:10:15.08] So that is I think what you're referring to, the proposals.
[01:10:18.79] EUNICE BURNS: Yes. One other thing they were afraid of was that there would be an influx of students in their neighborhood with lot of cars.
[01:10:30.74] WENDY RAMPSON: So that is something from a public policy standpoint that can always come back and be revisited. But those were the types of concerns that were expressed at that time. Next question, please?
[01:10:42.12] AUDIENCE: Wendy, you gave some great facts and figures earlier. I'm wondering, do you have any of those posted online, or are they available in handout form? The breakdown of the age of the community and how it's aging and those different shifts?
[01:11:02.34] WENDY RAMPSON: We don't at the city. But the best resource is SEMCOG, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments. If you go to simcog.org, they have census data comparisons for all sorts of communities within their region. So you can go look up Ann Arbor, and it will have the comparisons on housing and demographics that we were just talking.
[01:11:24.55] AUDIENCE: Oh, they do break it down to pull Ann Arbor out individually?
[01:11:28.63] WENDY RAMPSON: They do. They do.
[01:11:30.07] AUDIENCE: Now, the other question I have, which I have all the time with folks throwing facts and figures around, is that in Ann Arbor, of course, you also have the second problem of trying to figure out when people say Ann Arbor, if they're including the student population, U of M's housing or not. Those figures seem to somehow either be not included or you can't tell how they're broken down. Is there a way SEMCOG breaks that up?
[01:11:58.90] WENDY RAMPSON: Well, the census does. It's not clean and neat. But the housing dwelling unit counts that I was providing to you, those are free standing apartment buildings or houses. They don't include dorms, which are considered group housing. So the census keeps track of those group housing and nursing homes and things like that as a separate number. But the population in total, the 113,500 something, that includes students. It includes residents of nursing homes. It includes everybody that lives within that geographic area.
[01:12:41.80] AUDIENCE: And then off the top of your head, would you happen to know of that population, roughly how many can be accommodated in U of M's dorms.
[01:12:56.05] WENDY RAMPSON: I do not know off the top of my head. But that is probably an easily accessible number. It's a couple thousand. But beyond that, I would not wager how many. It's a pretty small portion of the population is housed in dormitories.
[01:13:15.40] AUDIENCE: Those numbers all feed back into the loop when you're trying to figure out some of the questions that occur. For example, when people are talking about building these new buildings downtown and they throw around the term of them being student housing or focused on the student market. It's hard to determine just how much need there is if you don't have those numbers. How much is being taken up by the dorms, and how much slack there is.
[01:13:48.72] WENDY RAMPSON: The university enrollment has increased gradually over time, but it hasn't been the same type of jump that they had in the 1960s. So as I mentioned earlier, as the number of dwelling units are increased or housing units within the city, our population is remaining stable.
[01:14:04.16] So there tends to be, even as we add, this kind of dispersion of the population. And that's one of the things that we think there's probably a lot of capacity out there to house people.
[01:14:16.56] AUDIENCE: And that feeds back into the point Eunice was addressing and yourself about the balance. How do you get at this question of the accessory apartments? And so many people at that time, as I remember, you're right. A lot of the fight against accessory apartments was based on the homeowners in the neighborhood having a fear that it was a stealth amendment to the planning. That it would be taken advantage of by the people who convert them to student rentals and other bugaboos that scare people.
[01:15:00.25] WENDY RAMPSON: Let me turn to the panel and see if they have any insight into this. And I don't know if any of you want to--
[01:15:06.94] AUDIENCE: Well, just to wrap up. The point I wanted to make is if you can demonstrate there's enough housing for students, then it helps defuse some of the argument that they're going to be moving off campus into the neighborhoods that are more farther afield, where these accessory apartments might be more popular for other folks. If the numbers don't work in your favor, then people get scared. But if they do, if there's sufficient housing for the students near campus, in may turn out that that helps defuse that argument.
[01:15:46.42] WENDY RAMPSON: Good point. Does anyone want to tackle that? OK. Yes.
[01:15:53.70] CAROLYN GRAWI: I'm Carolyn Grawi with the Ann Arbor Center for Independent Living. And I know most of you up there. And of course, I've worked a lot with Wendy on different issues in the community. My question and concern is that we are continuing to do two segments where we say we've got aging, and we've got disability.
[01:16:12.25] And we got to figure out how to bring those both together. Because we're all aging, and we're all going to have disability at some point between birth and death. It's going to happen. It's just part of the statistics and economics.
[01:16:23.43] And right now, the aging population is choosing to come to Ann Arbor because of all of our wonderful features. Well, guess what? So is the disability community. And even though we had 16,000 people leave Ann Arbor during all the economic crisises going on, none of our 16,000 people with disabilities left.
[01:16:43.96] When I say none, I might be off a few numbers here or there on that. But the people with disabilities, like seniors, want to stay where they are, in the comforts of their home and the comforts of their environment.
[01:16:55.69] One of our biggest difficulties, though, which is happening for seniors related to taxes is staying in their own home, being able to afford the taxes. Their house might be free and clear. We get calls about this a lot, even at the Center. Even though we don't directly work with seniors, we get these calls. How can we pay our taxes, because taxes keep going up, but our income isn't going up anymore. So that's one call that we get.
[01:17:17.92] I also got two calls this week in which, unfortunately, they can't be matched with each other, which is unfortunate. We don't have a matching program. But we have people with disabilities who would also like to be in a shared hosting environment.
[01:17:30.56] And so right now, the line is 55 of your program, Ryan?
[01:17:34.17] RYAN COWMEADOW: That's correct.
[01:17:34.83] CAROLYN GRAWI: And so I wonder if there might be qualifications that would allow people with disabilities to be part of that same mix. Because what happens is that people with disabilities, just like seniors, are qualified for Social Security or get other kinds of benefits to live independently and don't want to be institutionalized. But we're missing a segment of the market, so to speak. And maybe we could make other matches that would be useful.
[01:17:59.72] RYAN COWMEADOW: Sure, absolutely. So my program is focused on seniors. But there are many programs throughout the country that do focus on disability, homeless, LGBT youth, LGBT seniors. There's all different segments.
[01:18:10.86] Unfortunately, because we're funded through our grants, which are aging related, we're really at a loss. Although I do recognize that there certainly could be a match up program for almost any demographic here in Ann Arbor.
[01:18:24.69] And we do work with folks that do have disabilities. And they're more than welcome to apply. And it could be an inter-generational HomeShare match where they could be paired into a house with somebody that would be a senior age 55 and older. So I certainly welcome that.
[01:18:36.29] CAROLYN GRAWI: I wonder that might also be something just to look at further is that just as we have individuals who are qualified for SSI or SSDI and Medicare who aren't seniors, they fall into the same track of the same programs. Maybe there's a way, a loophole, that we could help find together.
[01:18:54.11] RYAN COWMEADOW: Perhaps. Absolutely. We should talk.
[01:18:56.07] CAROLYN GRAWI: Another option. And I definitely think that the experience that Eunice has is wonderful and that we can all learn from your experiences. So thank you for being so vocal about your experiences. And also thank you to Karen from AARP, because I know that you also do a lot of things.
[01:19:12.37] And, Steve, the CIL would like to be in touch with you as well, because there are people with disabilities who need another resource. And we try to just offer the resources to people. But we don't tell people who to go to or where to purchase their items. We try to give people options. And that's what I think this panel is talking to us about. So thank you to all of you.
[01:19:31.59] AUDIENCE: The only other question, I would say Ryan, from your role in the national-- was that national home sharing?
[01:19:38.13] RYAN COWMEADOW: Shared housing resources.
[01:19:39.60] AUDIENCE: Shared housing resources. Is that also a possibility for the Center for Independent Living? Any of the resources associated with that?
[01:19:47.27] RYAN COWMEADOW: Absolutely. Like I mentioned, we're partnering with the Affordable Living for the Aging right now, which is a huge organization in Los Angeles, to promote a national shared housing campaign. And it's not senior specific. I was actually fortunate enough to attend a symposium in Los Angeles in November, which was just awful, I'm certain you can imagine. And there was homeless representatives. There was disability representatives. And we're all recognizing that this is a really easy thing to do. And we should do this. So certainly, we could talk.
[01:20:18.23] WENDY RAMPSON: Great. Yes? Next question, please.
[01:20:23.37] AUDIENCE: My name's Thomas Partridge. I'm a disabled senior and a resident of Ann Arbor. In the Ann Arbor area for some 20 years. Then a candidate within the last six years for seats on the Washtenaw County commission as well as for the 18th district Michigan Senate seat. And most recently, the 53rd Michigan House seat that covers most of the University of Michigan community and much of the city of Ann Arbor.
[01:21:09.64] I am here, as I've gone this week to the Ann Arbor city council meeting on Monday night and the Washtenaw County commission meeting just last night. Calling on this panel for recommendations and for the support of the public observing this forum to ask that the public bodies, ranging from the city of Ann Arbor and the other cities in the county as well as the Washtenaw County commission, the government, and the Michigan legislature to change direction and give fundamental priority to civil rights, now most recently termed human rights in that most fundamental of those rights being access to affordable housing with the co-commitment to immediately ending homelessness.
[01:22:16.85] WENDY RAMPSON: Mr. Partridge, because we have a limit on time, do you have a specific question that we can pose to our--
[01:22:22.98] AUDIENCE: Yes, I'm getting my question.
[01:22:24.92] WENDY RAMPSON: Thank you.
[01:22:25.52] AUDIENCE: My question is, what are the recommendations of this panel to bring about affordable housing for seniors and disabled persons? Not only the city, but the entire county and state. Thank you.
[01:22:42.03] WENDY RAMPSON: Great, thank you. Who wants to start?
[01:22:46.35] RYAN COWMEADOW: Well, at the Housing Bureau for Seniors, we participate in a lot of different community collaboratives. And one of them is the Washtenaw Housing Alliance, which has a blueprint to end homelessness. They certainly recognize the need for affordable housing throughout the city and the county. And they are doing their best to make that happen. It certainly isn't coming fast enough. It does need to happen.
[01:23:05.73] STEVE BREDERNITZ: And as a contractor, that's a hard topic to answer. We're primarily driven by the consumer. So affordable housing doesn't always necessarily mean barrier free or aging in place. It's all kind of driven by the consumer.
[01:23:27.22] WENDY RAMPSON: Thoughts from AARP, some of the things that you are doing state wide related to affordability?
[01:23:36.34] KAREN KAFANTARIS: I think that really our position has been to work with communities like Ann Arbor, to explore what are the options. And what do you have, and what are the options that are out there. And it's not a one size fits all. What's going to help end homelessness in Ann Arbor is not the same thing that's going to help end homelessness in Detroit. You have to look at them all individually and take steps individually. So it's got to be a community based action plan.
[01:24:12.46] WENDY RAMPSON: I think one of the things this evening, our focus has been primarily on homeowners. And so that is an area that certainly needs more exploration is for those who aren't able to afford their home, older seniors that are in rental situations. There must be strategies too for assisting them and keeping and sustaining their housing. Great. Yes?
[01:24:37.63] AUDIENCE: My name is Robbi Duda, And I am a geriatric registered nurse. I have a concern that down the road that the housing that we're building now, that perhaps is more oriented to students or younger people who have no disabilities might at a later time need to be reconverted for people that are older or have some disabilities. And that we aren't taking that into consideration of what kind of cost that's going to be.
[01:25:08.52] I sit on the board of directors at Lurie Terrace, and we just recently had to upgrade our plumbing and our bathrooms. And that was extremely costly. So I hope that the planning commission and the building commission is asking these developers long term range. We don't want to tear your building down. We don't want to have it left in our hands when you leave with very costly reuse fee.
[01:25:45.06] The other thing I have a concern about is for an aging population is our communities where the homes are that they are not walkable. And the sidewalks. I'm talking about some areas in our community that don't have sidewalks, but also communities that there's no place close for people to walk and get some very basic items, like milk and bread. And no stores in some of our communities, that they're so far out, people are going to be isolated again.
[01:26:21.82] It's not such a big problem here in Ann Arbor, but across the country, many communities are finding that their seniors are literally isolated in their subdivisions. And so it's another thing that I would encourage everyone to look at.
[01:26:43.25] WENDY RAMPSON: As an urban planner, this is something that we've been grappling with. With the interests in the suburban lifestyle, a lot of that was predicated on families with children and the needs of families with children. And as those types of households are reduced and other households become more prevalent, we're finding that is countrywide, like you say. Trying to figure out how do you take an auto oriented layout for a community and try to adapt it to make it fit.
[01:27:16.85] And it's something planners are going to be grappling with for a long time. I'm really pleased that in Ann Arbor, that, over time, we definitely have a suburban layout in some parts of the city, but we've had this commitment to transit, to pedestrian facilities, so we can be better. But at least we got that to build on.
[01:27:40.91] AUDIENCE: What I'm thinking about in some of these urban designs is that some multi-use buildings might be helpful. So that you can have a store or maybe a community center or some other type of business that people could actually walk to instead of drive to.
[01:28:04.15] WENDY RAMPSON: That's great. Great feedback. Any additional?
[01:28:05.80] EUNICE BURNS: Well, just one thing. As I said, where I am, anybody who is a good walker can walk to the places that I said. It would just be a nice walk for them. But I still drive, which is fortunate, because there isn't anything really close to me. But I can take a cab with the golden whatever it's called. I'm not sure. Golden card.
[01:28:32.52] WENDY RAMPSON: The senior ride gold card.
[01:28:34.20] EUNICE BURNS: And I have been known to drive to a parking lot and take the bus from there. But we don't have a bus right where we are now, because we have bumps on Broadway now, and the buses don't want to come up that way.
[01:28:52.19] KAREN KAFANTARIS: So I'd like to just say something about the new development with accessibility features. So Michigan doesn't have this, but there are, I believe, eight states in the United States that have laws that a new development needs to at least meet the debility guidelines. So have one no step entrance, accessibility in the bathrooms, and things like that.
[01:29:24.09] Some have much greater in depth laws with universal design requirements. But it's not something that we have even attempted to tackle here in Michigan, that kind of legislation at this point.
[01:29:39.23] WENDY RAMPSON: Well, Michigan was one of the pioneers in a Michigan barrier free design. But we've fallen behind the times, I think, compared to some other states. And I think Carolyn, we're going to take [INAUDIBLE]. Yes?
[01:29:50.99] AUDIENCE: I was just saying there is actually, through MSHDA, there is disability legislation that was passed, Public Act 182. But the problem is that it only directly impacts [INAUDIBLE] state dollars [INAUDIBLE].
[01:30:02.10] KAREN KAFANTARIS: Right. Right. Exactly.
[01:30:04.35] AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
[01:30:05.04] KAREN KAFANTARIS: Right, we have a little.
[01:30:06.87] WENDY RAMPSON: So the answer here was that MSHDA requires visitability as a part of a state act, but it's really only for those projects that are MSHDA funded. So thank you.
[01:30:20.50] AUDIENCE: I have three quick questions. The first question is two years ago, I was looking for a condo with universal design with the idea of aging in place, but also to invite my friends who were using wheelchair or electric scooter. I asked the realtor where is the list with the homes with aging in place or universal design. And he didn't know. So my question is, is there something like that? That's the first question.
[01:30:46.70] The second one is it's not just aging that concerns us, but as we know from Carolyn also, it is the decreased amount of functioning in hearing, vision, mobility, and cognition. Cognition is becoming a major issue. Does HomeShare also provide the service for people that decline in cognition? And what do you do as an architect for a person who has decreased cognition?
[01:31:15.53] WENDY RAMPSON: OK. Let's start with the first, which is how do you find as a resource a list of homes that might be appropriate? Do you want to try that, Steve?
[01:31:29.54] STEVE BREDERNITZ: That's a tough question.
[01:31:33.33] AUDIENCE: You can start it, perhaps.
[01:31:38.66] STEVE BREDERNITZ: If I were to look at that, I would probably poll a number of realtors that I know and ask them for what they have in regards to a list of properties that fit your criteria. The job of a realtor is essentially to market your home, if you are on the selling end of the spectrum. If you're on the buying end of the spectrum, they're looking for stuff that meet your criteria.
[01:32:05.56] So if realtor A doesn't have the answer, then maybe it's a different realtor that has the answer or a different realtor organization.
[01:32:16.59] With regard to the architect in the cognitive functions, I recognize that as we age, our cognitive functions-- that's something that we really didn't touch on-- it does diminish. And there are lots of studies out there that prove that fact.
[01:32:34.10] The challenge gets to be is how do we, as a building community in conjunction with the design aspects of the architectural community, build something that matches all of that. I think technology is opening up some avenues with that. Apps for smartphones, video cameras, these types of things. There are bottles that you can get that remind you to take your medication.
[01:33:04.85] But as far as designing buildings, I think that that's a per occurrence, per each individual, as to what is the level of cognitive functions and what's the prescription or the prognosis for any future degrading of those functions, and then going from there.
[01:33:30.10] WENDY RAMPSON: Ryan, do you want to tackle the question about the cognitive in the HomeShare?
[01:33:34.31] RYAN COWMEADOW: Sure, absolutely. So we work with each person on a case by case basis. And we have had very successful HomeShare placements where there has been declining cognition. And we have had very challenging ones as well.
[01:33:46.43] So again, dependent on prognosis, it may be something that might be beneficial. It may be something that might be very detrimental at the same time. So again, it's a case by case basis. And we do look at all the factors when assessing our clients.
[01:34:01.44] EUNICE BURNS: I just wanted say as my last career was in real estate, we had a hard time at that time, I don't know if it's changed, to try to find even-- people wanted a house with a bedroom on the first floor. Even that was hard to find. There weren't a lot of them. And you had to really look hard to find it.
[01:34:27.32] That might be something that real estate people should now start looking at to really-- there are some people, by the way, who are trained. I'm not sure trained is quite the right word. But they get a designation as people who know more about senior living than others.
[01:34:52.58] WENDY RAMPSON: It maybe even a recommendation for changing the multi-list to have that as an option.
[01:34:57.33] EUNICE BURNS: Absolutely.
[01:35:00.49] WENDY RAMPSON: We unfortunately have to end this session so that we can be closed up by the time the library closes up. So thank you so much for coming this evening. We have one more forum that's April. Jamie, what's the date on that? OK. It's in April on transportation. While Jamie looks this up on her smartphone, that we hope that you're able to attend. And some of the questions that some people may have had this evening about how to support housing through transportation could be one of the focus. It's April 18th. Thank you. April 18th here at the library. Thanks so much. And thank our panel.
[01:35:41.61] [APPLAUSE]
[00:00:00.00]
[01:35:48.97] [MUSIC PLAYING]

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March 21, 2013 at the Downtown Library: Multi-Purpose Room

Length: 1:36:00

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Environment
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Sustainable Ann Arbor