RESOURCES

Rooted in a biomedical, institutional model of care, reactive to short-term reimbursement and real estate incentives and often hampered by siloed local planning efforts, America’s institutional long-term care, aging and disability service sectors have failed to provide communities with what we all want and need as we grow older and seek to remain integrated with multi-ability, multi-generational, inclusive community life. Despite landmark laws, including the Nursing Home Reform Act of 1987 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, many service silos remain stubbornly in place.

Yet when we step back and look at the array of community partners and providers who are expert in housing and providing skilled care, moderate level care and light-touch care and supports that improve quality of life, it becomes clear we can change this — by building a new Connected Community model to make the old modes obsolete.

We are inviting community leaders around the US to step forward to help create high-performance systems of supportive care that are embedded in normal community life. To start, we’re looking to recruit 100 Connected Communities over the next 3 years with the help of top talent in the movement of person-directed living. Evidence-based solutions exist today in pockets of the housing and skilled care sectors, developed over decades of work by leaders who have long experience in designing and implementing cost-effective change — innovators involved with the Center for Innovation’s Green House Project and Pioneer Network (together now known as AgingIN), the Eden Alternative, the Live Oak Project, the Gray Panthers and other innovators with a focus on community living, including PACE (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly), Area Agencies on Aging, Caring Across Generations, Age-Friendly Communities, and many more.