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They Do Their Best, but Their Best Isn’t Good Enough: How Social Housing Can Support Older Tenants Aging in Place

Toronto Community Housing (TCH) is the second largest social housing landlord in North America, and is home to over 27,000 older adults, half of whom live in 83 “seniors-designated” buildings. There is inadequate and inconsistent delivery of services in these buildings, negatively impacting tenants’...

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Autores principales: Sheppard, Christine, Austen, Andrea, Hitzig, Sander
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7742984/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igaa057.075
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author Sheppard, Christine
Austen, Andrea
Hitzig, Sander
author_facet Sheppard, Christine
Austen, Andrea
Hitzig, Sander
author_sort Sheppard, Christine
collection PubMed
description Toronto Community Housing (TCH) is the second largest social housing landlord in North America, and is home to over 27,000 older adults, half of whom live in 83 “seniors-designated” buildings. There is inadequate and inconsistent delivery of services in these buildings, negatively impacting tenants’ ability to age in place. We conducted two half-day consultations with service providers (n=74) and tenants (n=100) to identify strategies to improve unit condition, promote stable tenancies (i.e., prevent evictions) and enhance access to health and support services for older adults living in TCH. Through facilitated discussion, participants identified their top two recommendations for each priority area and reflected on the strategies that were hardest and easiest to implement, as well as the ones that would have the most and least impact on quality of life for older tenants. Participants recognized the need for more education as a way to empower older tenants and reduce stigma associated with unit condition issues (e.g., pest problems) and arrears. More frequent touch points with tenants was also recommended as a way to identify older adults at-risk of eviction and work proactively (instead of reactively) to support them. Service providers and tenants believed that system navigators working directly in the buildings would be a key facilitator to building trust and helping older tenants access needed services. Outcomes of the have several program and policy implications for TCH, as they partner with the City of Toronto to design a new integrated service model for the seniors-designated buildings.
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spelling pubmed-77429842020-12-21 They Do Their Best, but Their Best Isn’t Good Enough: How Social Housing Can Support Older Tenants Aging in Place Sheppard, Christine Austen, Andrea Hitzig, Sander Innov Aging Abstracts Toronto Community Housing (TCH) is the second largest social housing landlord in North America, and is home to over 27,000 older adults, half of whom live in 83 “seniors-designated” buildings. There is inadequate and inconsistent delivery of services in these buildings, negatively impacting tenants’ ability to age in place. We conducted two half-day consultations with service providers (n=74) and tenants (n=100) to identify strategies to improve unit condition, promote stable tenancies (i.e., prevent evictions) and enhance access to health and support services for older adults living in TCH. Through facilitated discussion, participants identified their top two recommendations for each priority area and reflected on the strategies that were hardest and easiest to implement, as well as the ones that would have the most and least impact on quality of life for older tenants. Participants recognized the need for more education as a way to empower older tenants and reduce stigma associated with unit condition issues (e.g., pest problems) and arrears. More frequent touch points with tenants was also recommended as a way to identify older adults at-risk of eviction and work proactively (instead of reactively) to support them. Service providers and tenants believed that system navigators working directly in the buildings would be a key facilitator to building trust and helping older tenants access needed services. Outcomes of the have several program and policy implications for TCH, as they partner with the City of Toronto to design a new integrated service model for the seniors-designated buildings. Oxford University Press 2020-12-16 /pmc/articles/PMC7742984/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igaa057.075 Text en © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Abstracts
Sheppard, Christine
Austen, Andrea
Hitzig, Sander
They Do Their Best, but Their Best Isn’t Good Enough: How Social Housing Can Support Older Tenants Aging in Place
title They Do Their Best, but Their Best Isn’t Good Enough: How Social Housing Can Support Older Tenants Aging in Place
title_full They Do Their Best, but Their Best Isn’t Good Enough: How Social Housing Can Support Older Tenants Aging in Place
title_fullStr They Do Their Best, but Their Best Isn’t Good Enough: How Social Housing Can Support Older Tenants Aging in Place
title_full_unstemmed They Do Their Best, but Their Best Isn’t Good Enough: How Social Housing Can Support Older Tenants Aging in Place
title_short They Do Their Best, but Their Best Isn’t Good Enough: How Social Housing Can Support Older Tenants Aging in Place
title_sort they do their best, but their best isn’t good enough: how social housing can support older tenants aging in place
topic Abstracts
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7742984/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igaa057.075
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