Senior villages are neighborhood-based membership organizations of staff, volunteers, and vendors supporting residents who wish to age in place. Senior villages typically offer services to residents aged 62 or older to allow them to remain in their homes for as long as they wish and are physically and mentally able.
In Washington DC the largest population cohort is seniors. Contrary to popular opinion, seniors not millennials are the single fastest growing group. Nothing equals the potential of technology to offset decreased mobility and increased fragility of elders. Villages of members committed to aging-in-place offers a laboratory communities where the most advanced technology can provide necessary and essential services for older adults.
Apps that facilitate life for older people are proliferating; telemedicine is expanding, virtual communication is already a social reality, and new kinds of services for older adults come online daily.
Traditional government sponsored urban services organized to help the aged are rooted in assumptions and conditions that reflect the race, class and economic conditions of the late 1960s and 70s. They also echo visions and stereotypes of aging that have become obsolete.
This collaboration between the Village and the city of Washington offers an opportunity to introduce new thinking and new programming that to facilitate a 21st century vision of aging.
Read full worksheet: https://gctc.opencommons.org/Connecting_the_Dots_Technology_Enhanced_Aging-in-Place_for_Residents_of_Waterfront_Village