Community Outreach & Education
What is Community Outreach & Education?
Senior housing may generate community opposition, especially senior living arrangements and diverse housing types. Municipalities may need to complete community outreach and education to help residents understand the issues and impacts of senior housing. Community outreach and education also helps communities connect their programs to seniors who need housing help.
Approaches Met
Help seniors age-in-place
Community outreach and education can help communities garner support to implement programs to support aging-in-place, and connect seniors to existing supportive programs and information.
Develop housing options for seniors to age-in-community
Community outreach and education can help communities garner support to implement changes to accommodate diverse housing types within the community for those wishing to age-in-community.
Facilitate multigenerational and shared housing
Community outreach could be used to help connect individuals interested in finding shared housing and can help communities garner support to implement zoning options for shared housing.
Keep seniors physically and socially connected
Community outreach and education can help connect seniors to existing resources for transportation and social connections, and direct support to such programs.
Create a range of price options for housing
Community outreach and education can help garner support for affordable housing and changes to accommodate diverse housing types.
Make it Happen
Municipalities can work to address various concerns through public outreach and education, as well as ordinance provisions that have adequately addressed design and off-site impact considerations.
Community Outreach & Education in Practice
Phoenixville, PA
Phoenixville has seen strong economic growth in recent years, which has resulted in raising housing prices. To address this issue the municipality created an Affordable Housing Task Force. The task force created recommendations and actively work the community to understand affordability issues.
Find Out More
- Communications Guide, American Planning Association Guide for planners on delivering planning messages to the community.
- AARP Livable Communities AARP completes community education and outreach on senior housing topics through newsletter, age-friendly designations, and a website. There are multiple resources available for municipal use.