Oak Park recently was designated a “Dementia Friendly Community.” River Forest offers a snow removal program for eligible senior citizens, while the Niles Free Bus traverses neighborhoods to take seniors to shopping and doctor appointments, and the North West Housing Partnership has a handyman program for older adults needing home repairs. These are just a sampling of the efforts across Chicagoland to help older adults remain in their homes and communities as they age.
“This is a group of folks that are going to need more services, support and considerations from their cities and towns,” said Mayor Cathy Adduci of River Forest. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or a Republican. This is isn’t a partisan issue; we all age. We all have this issue to address.”
The Metropolitan Mayors Caucus (MMC)—a membership-based nonprofit for mayors across the Chicago region—is one of the organizations helping cities, towns and villages collaborate to make communities more age-friendly.
“At the collective table, we’ve had 50 communities involved—this is an issue shared among communities,” said Kyle Smith, director of housing and community development for the MMC. “While it’s felt differently from town to town, it’s felt everywhere, in every corner of our region.”
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The 2020 census shed light on the numbers of aging residents.
“One thing that was very clear—we are growing older as well as more diverse,” said Smith, referencing the Chicago region’s statistics. “The infrastructure of our communities will need to adapt as our communities are aging, and it’s going to accelerate as we get older.”
More than one million residents—about 13 percent of the Chicago region’s population—were age 65 and older in 2018, according to a recent policy update by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP). The region’s senior population is projected to increase by 880,000 people between 2015 and 2050. Some townships are aging faster than others, with the fastest-growing concentrated in the west and southwest areas of the region.
“We’re seeing a spurt in growth in the senior population; our older population is growing faster than those in their 20s,” said Adduci, who is also the Age-Friendly Communities Collaborative chairwoman for MMC. “You’re seeing this shift of aging going on, and it’s going to continue for another 30 years or so, according to the data.”
To support aging in place, municipalities will need to assess issues like housing, transportation and livability for their older residents, now and decades down the line.
“Once we realized we had to become more age-friendly, we had to figure out what that looked like,” Adduci said of River Forest, which created an Age-Friendly Advisory Ad Hoc Committee.
Considerations include things like housing options, public transportation, snow removal, health services, safety and walkability. To help municipalities, organizations like the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) Network of Age-Friendly Communities, Dementia Friendly America, and the World Health Organization’s Global Network for Age-friendly Cities and Communities already have laid some of the groundwork with research, guidelines and checklists.
“We were guided a lot by AARP’s framework,” Adduci said. “We were one of the early adopters from Dementia Friendly Illinois, which means we are certified in understanding [the dementia] population and the needs of that population.”
There’s a multitude of issues for municipalities to ponder according to their own specific circumstances.
“Every community is different—there is no one-size-fits all, there’s not just one approach,” MMC’s Smith said. “It really depends on the context of the community.”
Demographics, economics, geography and resources all come into play.
“Some areas are a lot more walkable and accessible to transportation and some are very rural,” said Jonathan Burch, principal planner at CMAP. “It really does have to start with that initial assessment: Who are your seniors? What are their challenges? What are their barriers? And then you can figure out target programs.”
Many communities are collaborating and sharing ideas.
“There are a lot of good examples bubbling up in the region,” Burch said.
Bolingbrook, according to CMAP, updated its building code to improve accessibility, while Hawthorn Woods compiled a guide to aging in place.
Woodstock is an active member of the Age-Friendly Livable Community initiative, a planning program that includes 10 other Illinois communities as well as more than 530 cities and states nationwide. Thanks to two grants, Woodstock and Dorr Township are opening a staffed drop-in program for residents 60 and older.
In the Northwest suburbs, the North West Housing Partnership (NWHP) offers a Handyman Program for those who are 60 years and older and people with disabilities and in need of simple repairs to their homes. NWHP also runs CAPABLE (Community Aging in Place, Advancing Better Living for Elders), which coordinates the services of a nurse and occupational therapist to recommend home improvements that help residents remain in their homes.
Oak Park formed its Aging in Place Commission in 2018 and has since partnered with the Oak Park Township, Oak Park Library and Park District of Oak Park to earn in 2020 its designation as a “Dementia Friendly Community” by Dementia Friendly America. As part of the program, businesses are encouraged to participate in dementia-friendly training to understand how to identify customers dealing with dementia and provide appropriate assistance. Other suburbs to have achieved that designation include Naperville, Orland Park, Oswego, River Forest, Batavia, Geneva, St. Charles, Westmont, Springfield, Elgin, Evanston, Glencoe, Grayslake and Highland Park.
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“There are a lot of resources out there, a lot of expertise; you don’t have to go it alone,” said Tammie Grossman, director of Oak Park’s development customer services. “You can partner with some of these agencies. We’ve picked what’s worked for us.”
Next up, Oak Park is working toward the designation of an Age-Friendly Community as outlined by AARP.
“We have a long history of being a welcoming community,” Grossman said. “We see our senior population as part of that diversity.”