Best Practices & Reports

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Senior Housing Research & Reports

Enterprise has helped document best practices, case studies and hands-on manuals and reports to provide in-depth expertise in affordable senior housing.

	Universal Design Specifications As an add-on to the Green Communities Criteria, Enterprise has created construction document-ready specifications for housing owners looking to incorporate universal design elements into their single-family and multifamily properties. This optional specification tool provides both broad guidance and specific details on how to implement age-friendly and user-friendly design features that complement the Green Communities Criteria.
	Senior Housing in New York State Enterprise provided support for LeadingAge New York to develop this paper which describes in detail the demographics of the aging population in New York State; various types, features and benefits of senior housing; supportive services and care coordination in senior housing; and policy issues affecting senior housing including Medicaid reform and federal initiatives. The paper also reviews New York’s assisted living models and regulations and delineates the differences between assisted living and senior housing. Finally, several innovative and successful state and national models of housing development and service integration are presented based on site visits and interviews with key stakeholders.
	Strategies for Scaling Shared Housing This guide is targeted to senior housing and service providers who are considering alternative, affordable housing strategies for older adults. Enterprise provided support for Affordable Living for the Aging to develop a guide on strategies around shared housing, with a focus on the aging population. The guide is not a step-by-step manual, rather it provides strategic guidance on how to scale and strengthen existing shared housing programs and launch new ones.
	Resident Assessment Tool This tool represents a good first step for housing providers interested in integrating services into their housing communities. The free tool is included in a 4-part package that Enterprise partners can download: A Guide to Conducting Resident Assessments offers direction on using the self-assessment tool, which residents complete themselves or with help from housing property staff or an outside community partner. The guide also provides strategies that properties can use to respond to the needs identified through the survey process. The Resident Assessment Tool Part 1 collects information about residents’ health and functional status, as well as their social support network. The Resident Assessment Tool Part II captures information about activities that interest residents, including services and programs in which they would willingly participate. An Excel Spreadsheet helps properties tabulate the assessment results and view, in one place, an overall picture of their resident populations.
	Summit on Aging in Place in Public Housing March 10-11, 2011 Held by Enterprise and LeadingAge. Over the two-day period, teams from each of the seven participating locations learned about the strategies each is employing and/or developing to help support residents to age safely in their homes.
	Innovation in Senior Housing: Four Case Studies 990 Polk (San Francisco, Calif.): Mixes low-income senior housing with permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless seniors to access capital and operating subsidy sources. Emeritus House (Cleveland, Ohio): Adds green elements to secure additional capital for preservation in adaptive reuse, overcoming conflicts between historic preservation requirements and green building goals. Ewing Independent Living (Ewing, N.J.): Incorporates housing for the developmentally disabled in a senior assisted-living setting to access capital sources and service funding, maximizing potential for aging in place. Azotea Senior Apartments (Alamogordo, N.M.): Builds lean and green, minimizing construction and operating costs in a low-subsidy environment.
	Creating Opportunities for Families Through Resident Services: A Practitioner's Manual - Volume 1 Implementing a Basic Resident Services Program The manual describes how to determine what services would most benefit your residents, and then how to fund, staff, design, implement, partner and measure the effectiveness of those services.
	Creating Opportunities for Families Through Resident Services: A Practitioner's Manual - Volume 2 Enhanced and Comprehensive Resident Services Each section includes an overview along with multiple model documents to help you get started immediately with hands-on, helpful tools you can adapt quickly to fit your needs.
	National Summit on Affordable Senior Housing and Services in Washington, D.C. on May 25, 2010 Held by the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging (AAHSA), in partnership with Enterprise. The summit convened experts from the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and other government agencies, organizations, senior and health care providers and foundations.
	Research Demonstrates Positive Impact of Family Resident Services on Property Financial Performance in Selected Mercy Housing Family Properties Over Two Years The Mercy property performance research consists of a review of selected property performance data with obvious correlations with resident behavior in 36 properties totaling 1,787 units of family housing. Similar properties with resident services were compared to properties without services. Initial findings demonstrated that services provided to families by resident services staff reduced property vacancy losses, legal fees and bad debts.

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