Older adults flocking to the Triangle. Are Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill ready?
Housing, transportation and quality of life remain the biggest challenges for local governments across the Triangle, the mayors of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill said Thursday during an AARP North Carolina-sponsored livestream “Triangle Talks.”
What makes a city more livable for someone who is 80 is the same thing that makes it a good place to live for someone who is 8 years old, said Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin, who is 64. That could be safer, wider bike lanes and sidewalks, better access to health care and food, or opportunities for social services and cultural programs.
People over age 65 comprised roughly 10% of Raleigh’s 474,069 residents in 2019, according to the U.S. Census.
In Durham, the 65-plus crowd made up 11.3% of the city’s 278,993 residents, and in Chapel Hill, 14.6% of the town’s 64,051 residents.
About 9% of the state’s population is caring for aging family and friends, NCAARP volunteer Scott Buell said Thursday.
The numbers will grow as retirees flock to the area for its culture, climate and world-class health care, the mayors said during their virtual Facebook conversation. Baldwin noted others moving here to care for their parents and grandparents or because they have relatives living here who can care for them.
The work to create better communities for people of all ages started several years ago in Orange and Wake counties, which launched their master aging plans in 2016. Durham County followed last year.
All three plans reflect eight features of a desirable community for aging residents identified by the World Health Organization: built environment, transportation, housing, social participation, respect and social inclusion, civic participation and employment, communication, community support, and health services.
Affordable, safe housing
Housing, the biggest challenge, is “only going to get more expensive and more complicated,” said Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger, who at 60 is the youngest of the mayors.
“You have to work in partnerships,” Hemminger said. “Towns and cities can’t do this by themselves.”
Chapel Hill was the first of the governments to pass its $10 million affordable housing bond in 2018, followed by Durham with a $95 million bond in 2019 and Raleigh’s $80 million bond, which voters approved this month.
Raleigh’s bond will help build more housing and continue a renovation program that started in 2015, Baldwin said. That program has tripled the number of affordable rental units, she said.
But bonds represent only a small amount of the money needed, the mayors said. Their cities also allocate a portion of local property taxes to affordable housing and work with other government and nonprofit housing partners to get the biggest bang for their bucks.
By leveraging the money, they also can get state and federal housing grants and serve more needs, including among veterans and those who are homeless, Hemminger and Baldwin said.
Durham’s housing bond will leverage nearly $400,000 in private and housing tax credit funds, Durham Mayor Steve Schewel said. He noted several renovation and building projects already underway and more planned to provide senior housing.
Changing land-use rules also will make it easier to build different types of housing. One change the Raleigh City Council made last week will make it easier to build accessory dwelling units, such as cottages and granny flats, Baldwin said.
So-called ADUs can help aging family members who want to remain independent but need some support, as well as older homeowners who want to earn rental income from their home, AARP experts have said.
Chapel Hill has used all of those tactics, but providing affordable housing for families with moderate incomes still remains a challenge, Hemminger said.
The town’s most notable projects included a 2016 partnership with Raleigh-based housing provider DHIC to build affordable senior apartments on town land, she said, and another program in the Northside neighborhood that repairs aging residents’ homes and preserves homes for new families.
Private developers also are building “active adult communities” for those 55 and up, with low-maintenance, one-story homes and on-site socializing, programs and events, and trails and parks.
Carrboro could see some of those housing options over the next 10 years through the Lloyd Farm development on N.C. 54. In Chapel Hill, the new Azalea Estates Gracious Retirement Living complex on Estes Drive will open soon. And in Hillsborough, Habitat for Humanity Orange County recently built its first 55-plus project, Crescent Magnolia in the Waterstone neighborhood.
COVID-19 has delayed another option in Wake County, Baldwin said — working with Wake County and the school system to identify publicly owned land for affordable housing.
The federal government also needs to assume a bigger role, she added.
“There’s very little innovation. There’s very little desire to work together,” Baldwin said. “We have as cities made countless overtures to the federal government begging for help and some policy changes, and I’m hoping that’s something we’re going to see, because that could improve (housing) for everybody.”
Transit and transportation
Another big challenge facing people from all walks of life is better transit and transportation, the mayors said.
City officials are working with their counties and also as a region to spend available transit money on more than just roads, they said, from bus-rapid transit routes in Raleigh and Chapel Hill to a commuter train route between Durham and Raleigh, and more protected bike lanes, better sidewalks and an expanded greenway system.
Autonomous vehicles, along with rider services, such as Uber and Lyft, also are changing the conversation, Hemminger noted.
Schewel said Durham would like a fare-free bus system like Chapel Hill Transit, along with better bus stops with shelters, benches and lighting. The older folks get, he noted, the less interested they are in driving.
Again, the federal government also could step up and help, Baldwin added.
“We are not getting the funding for transit programs,” she said. The federal government has been “funding rural highways, and I understand that, but when you have urban areas that are growing and in dire need of other forms of transportation, we have to really look at the equity issues there on all sides and make better and fair decisions for all our communities.”
Health, emotional and mental care
COVID-19 has both exacerbated existing issues and improved others for aging residents, the mayors said. One positive outcome, they noted, is that the stigma has been removed from telemedicine visits, making it a viable option for the future.
Another positive development has been the number of seniors finding ways to volunteer — safely in person or online — said Schewel, who is 69.
“All of us who are aging really need to have social participation and civic participation and opportunities for employment and volunteering. I think we’ve seen some avenues toward that that I wouldn’t have necessarily expected to see during this time,” he said.
However, some older residents are facing an “increased sense of loneliness and anxiety,” Hemminger said. Many also are struggling to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads, she and the others said.
Providing food to low-income seniors has required a lot of public money and private fundraising, Schewel said. He also worries about the local economy, jobs and “the coming wave of evictions should the moratorium be lifted,” he said.
“That is a very scary prospect, and we need do everything we can to fight that,” he said, noting that Durham has $3 million set aide for rental assistance and attorneys ready to help people in eviction court.
Schewel also emphasized the community’s role in addressing the isolation among older adults.
“One of the things I’m constantly doing and my colleagues are, too, is encouraging our neighbors to check in on seniors or people who are isolated in their neighborhood, offer to bring the groceries, drop off a little gift, make a phone call, do all the things that we think are important to help keep people from being isolated,” Schewel said.
Communities also need to do more for older adults with dementia and other mental and physical needs, Baldwin said. She recalled her now-late mother, who had dementia but still wanted that social connection.
“She would go (to daycare) twice a week, and it just made her smile,” Baldwin said. “She would do art projects, she would be with other people. That’s something that we didn’t have before COVID and we don’t have now.”
Orange County has been working on that issue since launching a Dementia-Friendly Business Campaign in 2015. The partnership with the East Chapel Hill Rotary Club and Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce provides businesses with training in how to interact with people who may have dementia.
The Alzheimer’s Association estimated that 5.8 million Americans over 65 live with the disease. Roughly 80% are over 75, and about two-thirds are women, the group said.
The number is expected to climb to 13.8 million by 2050.
The growing toll isn’t just on families and caretakers, the association noted. This year, the cost of caring for Americans with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia is expected to hit $305 billion.
This story was originally published November 13, 2020 at 5:45 AM.
