By Steve Syre
The LTSS Center will analyze the responses of older consumers to service-enriched housing models in urban and suburban communities.
The LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston has been engaged by B’nai B’rith Housing (BBH) to study why service-enriched housing models for older adults have experienced significantly different turnover rates in an urban community and a suburban setting.
BBH has offered a service-enriched environment at the long-established Covenant House in Boston, an affordable housing community with 242 apartments. About 90% of residents are age 62 or older. All residents are dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid and eligible for Section 8 affordable housing.
In 2014, BBH opened the 64-unit Coolidge at Sudbury in Boston’s western suburbs and took a similar service-enrichment approach that features an on-site service coordinator. Coolidge residents are younger at move-in (age 72) and somewhat frailer than Covenant House residents.
UNDERSTANDING FACTORS BEHIND TURNOVER RATES
Over the past 4 years, turnover rates have been higher than expected at Coolidge. BBH has engaged the LTSS Center to look at how Covenant House and Coolidge at Sudbury residents differ in what they are looking for a housing community and their expectations regarding service-enriched housing. The center will also examine factors that might make Coolidge at Sudbury more attractive to residents and how BBH can improve the overall resident experience by enhancing current programs and services or adding new ones.
“Given the success of BBH with its residents in Boston, it will be very interesting to learn how housing with services models should be altered when placed in more affluent suburban settings,” said LTSS Center Co-Director Marc Cohen, who is supervising the BBH project.
The LTSS Center research team will evaluate whether and how the urban service-enrichment approach might be altered at Coolidge in light of the population’s demographic and health characteristics, the attitudes and initial expectations of residents, patterns of service use, and a suburban service-delivery system that is more fragmented than urban systems.
The researchers are working to determine:
- The level of resident satisfaction with living arrangements and service enrichment at both sites.
- What residents feel is working well and could be improved to make the housing community more attractive to them.
- What residents feel are the primary benefits of the service-enrichment programs.
- What factors are associated with different turnover rates and differences in use of on-site services.
- Whether there is enough density in Sudbury to allow for cost-efficient delivery of services.
RESEARCH METHODS
The research team will use a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods during the study. Among other things, the team will:
- Conduct a satisfaction/quality of life survey at Coolidge at Sudbury and Covenant House to collect detailed information about residents.
- Lead focus groups at both sites.
- Conduct telephone interviews with residents who have moved out of Coolidge at Sudbury.
“As the option of adding services to housing continues to expand, it is important to understand what does and does not work for people,” said Cohen. “Models are likely to require customization across housing properties, which is a real challenge.”
The BBH project is led by LTSS Center Fellow Erin McGaffigan and Policy Research Associate Taryn Patterson, with support from graduate students at the University of Massachusetts Boston. A report on project findings is expected to be completed this summer.