My guess is that you\u2019ll make different choices from your parents. After all, you\u2019ll probably live five to 10 years longer than they did. And you\u2019re probably in better health than they were at your age. And you might have traveled more, have more diverse friends, stay in touch with the people in your life differently, and most likely have kids and close family members who don\u2019t live nearby.<\/p>\n
And most boomers don\u2019t have quite enough in savings to live in today\u2019s senior housing for more than a few years\u2014if they want to live there at all. Because more than half of the nation\u2019s homeowners are 50-plus years old, we at Georgetown University\u2019s Global Social Enterprise Initiative\u2019s AgingWell Hub<\/a> set out to reimagine the future of living environments for older adults. How do today\u2019s boomers think about their communities, activities, families, and jobs? And how will those elements of their lives inform their future housing decisions?<\/p>\n The good and the bad news is that the living environment that most boomers will want and will be able to afford does not yet exist in large quantity. Why is that good news? Because we still have plenty of time to create the environments that people want. And we can all get involved in shaping that future.<\/p>\n Our research leveraged a method called human-centered design, which helps get to the heart of market possibilities by taking the point of view of a hypothetical person and walking a mile (or in this case, five years) in their shoes.<\/p>\n Map courtesy of Aging Well Hub<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n In our case, our \u201cpersona\u201d is a woman named Melinda, aged 68, working part time, and living alone in the house in the Atlanta suburbs where she and her husband raised their two kids, who are now adults with families of their own.<\/p>\n Melinda is in good health, both physically and financially, with a net worth of $260,000, most of which is in her home. Like many other women her age, Melinda doesn\u2019t live near her sister or kids. But she stays in close touch by using basic technology (Skype, Facebook, FaceTime, and email) and has one very close friend her age who lives nearby. Melinda leans on her daughter, her friends from church, and her book group for support.<\/p>\n As a research team, we took several months to imagine what life would feel like for Melinda over the course of five years, from age 68 to age 72. We followed Melinda as she got her footing after her husband\u2019s death, took a cruise to treat herself to some fun, met a new love interest, retired from her job, and discovered that she was capable of thriving as a single woman in ways she wouldn\u2019t have imagined two years earlier.<\/p>\n Melinda also encounters challenges as her close friend moves away, her kids have financial strains, she finds retirement lonely, and she spends more money than she\u2019d originally planned. When she discovers she needs to make significant improvements to her house, which hasn\u2019t been upgraded in 35 years, she\u2019s forced to make a decision about her best living options. She is unlikely to move into traditional senior housing at this stage of her life. She\u2019s still very independent, and her budget doesn\u2019t allow for a 10- to 15-year tenure in an environment that costs $3,000 to $5,000 per month. But remaining in her home alone requires investments that she hasn\u2019t planned for. There isn\u2019t a perfect solution for her or the millions of Americans who find themselves in her situation.<\/p>\n Trend toward multi-generational family living is now and in the future. Photo: Deposit Photos<\/p><\/div>\n So, we imagined what might be possible and what is already starting to happen in America. She could combine households with a good friend or rent out a portion of her house to generate additional income. She might convince her recently divorced daughter who\u2019s struggling financially to move back to Atlanta and join the upward trend in multi-generational housing that\u2019s been on the rise over the past decade. Or she might decide to sell her house, put that equity to work in an innovative financial instrument, and rent a small apartment nearby with easy access to retail, public transportation, community organizations, and ride shares.<\/p>\n Technology developments of the past 10 years will likely shape Melinda\u2019s decision-making process. With ride-sharing services exploding, she likely won\u2019t be completely dependent on a car to access basic services. And with rising rates of e-commerce, there will be few household goods that can\u2019t be delivered to her door. Online rental marketplaces can allow her to monetize the unused space in her home on a short- or long-term basis. And services like TaskRabbit <\/a>will support her in doing basic household tasks that might be difficult for an older person living alone. All of them will allow Melinda to make her decisions based on what she wants rather than what she feels she must do to minimize risk.<\/p>\n In other words, Melinda has a vast array of choices. And if she\u2019s like the others in her boomer generation, she won\u2019t hesitate to get creative and lead the way.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/melindas-ecosystem-750w-www.agingwellhub.org_.jpg\")
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