Housing, Economic and Demographic Reports & Statistics

A Guide to Assessing Senior Assisted Living Needs in Your Community

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A Guide to Assessing Senior Assisted Living Needs in Your Community, June 2006 (PDF )

Rural communities throughout Montana are facing a crisis in housing-with-service supports for their aging populations. Many of those elderly are aging in place, with few resources available to meet their housing and activities of daily living needs. Community leaders and the families of the elderly have identified "assisted living" as a potential solution for providing that support for the senior citizens in their communities.

This concern is not unique to Montana, as described in the U.S Department of Health and Human Studies report issued in November 2000. It states, "The most rapidly growing form of senior housing in recent years has been a form of supportive housing or long-term care known as assisted living. This growth has been a response to several factors, including the aging of the population, the preferences of the elderly for settings other than nursing homes, the availability of private financing for development of assisted living facilities (ALFs) and public policies aimed at containing use of nursing homes."

Expectations about the needs of an aging population living with disabilities have changed dramatically in the past few decades, in large part due to the influence of the independent living and disability rights movements, which seek to integrate persons with disabilities into the everyday life of their communities rather than isolating them in medically oriented facilities. "The independent living philosophy sees disability not as an individual characteristic or "problem" but as a relationship between the individual and the entire environment in which he or she lives....The independent living movement also seeks to change social attitudes to recognize that persons with disabilities want to remain in control of their lives and should receive the services they need to remain independent. As Judith E. Heumann has put it, "Independent living is not doing things by yourself, it is being in control of how things are done." (Co-Founder, World Institute on Disability)

This study suggests a shift in the way communities address assisted living--not necessarily as a "facility" but as a way of integrating community services into housing. One can then accomplish "assisted living" through an intentional program of providing a wide variety of settings in which seniors can meet their needs for living with assistance. The community can itself become a significant player in developing supportive services to serve its own aging population.

This report provides project development information for community, not-for-profit groups, and other providers of housing and services to seniors using Montana's HOME Investment Partnership (HOME) and Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding programs. Groups may include community-sponsored nonprofit and for-profit organizations, housing authorities, and fraternal and social organizations interested in developing special needs housing for the elderly. It focuses on meeting the needs of the frail elderly for whom stand-alone independent housing, whether in one's own home or a rented or senior apartment, is no longer appropriate, and who do not wish to accede to nursing home submissiveness.