How does a senior service agency get into the work of housing without building its own complex? Silver Key in Colorado Springs, Colorado spent months doing listening sessions to find out where the gaps were for older adults and housing. Once they started to pick up on trends they crafted a new position within their organization that supports their case managers and collaborates on a broad community basis to serve older adults in new ways.
Aging with Altitude is recorded in the Pikes Peak region with a focus on topics of aging interest across the country. We talk about both the everyday and novel needs and approaches to age with altitude whether you’re in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida or Leadville, Colorado. The Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging is the producer. Learn more at Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging.
Transcript:
Michaela Nichols:
Hello and thank you for listening to Aging with Altitude, a podcast series about how we rise above the day-to-day issues that surround aging. This series is sponsored by the Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging. Today's episode is about housing. My name is Michaela Nichols and I'm here with Dayton Romero and Erin McNabb. Mr. Romero is the director of senior assistant programs at Silver Key Senior Services, which is a nonprofit that provides services to the senior community in El Paso County. He's been with Silver Key since July of 2015. Miss McNabb has been with Silver Keys since February, solely working in the housing navigation program. The program was created in March 2019 to help seniors looking for housing in the area.
Can you all explain a little bit about what the housing navigation program does?
Dayton Romero:
Yeah, the housing navigation program came to its fruition whenever we held a focus group as part of the Age Friendly Colorado Springs Initiative. Our case management group specifically was asked to hold this focus group to kind of have a discussion on some of the different things we were observing anecdotally across our clients, and also data wise. What we found is that there was a gap in our community specifically among seniors who were running into challenges. When they were looking for an alternative place whether it be downsizing or their rent at their current place increasing, and so we found that the extent of services offered to these individuals was to provide them a housing list that may be outdated as soon as it prints out from the Internet. And so we found a big need for a dedicated position and role, and a program to be able to provide a comprehensive navigation service for individuals. That ranges from being able to identify their preferences, their barriers and really putting them in a position where they are most likely able to find a place where they'll be able to thrive and be independent.
Erin McNabb:
Part of that is educating people on the changes in the housing market since the last time they were looking at housing; changes and how technology has affected how people search for housing; changes in how landlords are looking for tenants due to the lack of housing in our community as the increased rents and increased barriers. It's definitely a landlord’s market versus a renter's market. I spent a lot of time educating people on what barriers landlord’s do put in place as eligibility criteria for people to get into properties, also how to search. People often don't understand the best ways to search for housing anymore or they don't have access to the Internet and that's where you have to go. Facebook marketplace and groups are huge places where people are posting available rentals; difference between private landlords and property managers and different expectations, different barriers people put between the two groups. I spent a lot of time educating on how to search and when I do, measure those...
