If there’s perhaps a silver lining to the coronavirus outbreak, it’s the light that’s been shone on older adults and the often suboptimal choices they face when it comes to housing. In particular, we’ve seen stark imagery of the understaffed and frankly dismal options older adults may confront when it comes to such long term institutional care like nursing homes or memory care facilities. While physical frailty or financial limitations may mean that many older adults have no choice but to live in facilities, that care has often been risky and insufficient, so that many going forward will think twice about whether to put themselves or loved ones in the position of entering these “care” homes. As one expert looking into the future stated, “Coronavirus has exposed the extent of problems in the care home sector at the same time as bringing generations within families closer. This will create strong incentive for families to work out best how to support older parents- either in multi-generational homes or by using technology to support independent living for longer.”

Whether and how to change your living situation as an older adult requires many considerations, from the practical to the psychological, often constrained or informed by health, cognition, and finances. The pandemic has left many of us wondering whether entering a facility is the equivalent of consigning ourselves or our loved ones to demise and death. Certainly, it has prompted many to rethink what life in a facility should look like (and many residents have even left their assisted living or memory care during the pandemic). Others will need to more seriously consider how we can age in place and what additional resources, such as village-to-village movements, can help us stay as independent, and community-based, as long as possible. But, according to a new report, many of us are not really prepared to age in place, or at least we have not done enough to prepare our living spaces. As the NIH reports, only a small minority of homes are “aging-ready,” i.e. have such resources in place as step-free entries, first floor bedrooms and bathrooms, and other functional designs to allow for senior living.

And then there is the possibility of multi-generational living, with several generations of a family under one roof. It’s been trending for some time and as The Pew Research Center reports, over 64 million Americans currently live in such an arrangement. The pandemic has brought into focus this option as more of us crave the connection we have lost with our relatives while recognizing the value that can benefit all when generations combine households. Aging and design expert Lisa Cini, author of the book Hive: The Simple Guide to Multigenerational Living: How Our Family Makes It Work, recently stated that when setting up such a household, you need to “Think of your multi-generation household as a beehive; everyone has their own unique purpose in the living environment…Balancing everyone living under one roof can teach valuable life lessons for our future.” And those lessons have never been more clear than during our difficult current situation. As writer Frankie Huang described in her recent piece in The Atlantic, finding herself unexpectedly in such an arrangement, multi-generational living can be surprisingly satisfying. As she wrote, “I may have lost some of the independence I once had, but every day I see proof that we can rely on one another without trying to control one another.” Sounds like a solution that many may find both supportive and enlightening.