January 2020 Update

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A handful of news articles over the past month show the trending growth of interest in ADU development as an affordable small housing alternative. 2020 just may be the breakthrough year for game-changing events happening near you. News items ranging from the most recent:

January 14: Builder newsletter notes that, because three of four adults believe they can afford fewer than half the homes available for sale these days, and because many aged 55+ individuals have so far fallen short in their retirement planning, the traditional builder market is coming round to considering affordable housing to be an attractive product. Needing coding and financing changes are well on the way in some areas.

January 14: Costs of housing continue to increase at an “alarming” rate, according to this Builder report, but ADUs “have emerged as a source of hope and speculation that this form of increased density may help affordability’s cause.” With predictions that hundreds of thousands of ADU-type structures will be pushed for during the next 15 years, two entrepreneurs and their new company Abodu plan to start regular production of 500 square foot prefabricated structures—some 25 to 30 a year—priced from $130,000 to $140,000.

January 1: A newly revised housing code for Seattle, Washington is opening up back yard to detached ADUs, or DADUs, adding still more versatility to the small house alternative. Seniors can be prime beneficiaries, but other age groups and family members can as well. DADUs can be used by multiple family members, allowing them to rent out the primary structure and/or find tenants for an existing ADU on the property.

December 25, 2019: ADU-pioneering city Minneapolis, Minnesota expanded the ADU definition by allowing construction of a two-story, 1500 square foot ADU, consisting of a downstairs garage and an upstairs two-bedroom apartment with kitchen and bathroom.

As a parting and personal note, newly elected councilman Jason Schachner in my hometown Lakewood, Ohio included ADU development in the city as a plank in his campaign platform. He has expressed interest in working with yours truly on developing future proposals, and I very much look forward to it. This will no doubt enhance the usefulness and practicality of this blog.


May 2019 Update

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A number of simultaneous developments are converging to make the case for accessory dwelling units (ADUs) as a serious alternative for senior housing in the near future.

A study published recently by the widely respected journal Health Affairs disclosed that more than half of seniors in the “middle income” range will be unable to afford private pay senior housing by the year 2030. The annual cost of assisted living plus medical expenses, set at around $62,000 currently, would be beyond the reach of any but the most well-off seniors.

In fact, as I’ve noted before in this blog, annual costs of supportive housing, including independent-oriented developments, already go well beyond the resources of average middle-income Americans who don’t have high-priced homes to sell. The urgency of this was endorsed recently by the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care (NIC), just starting to educate its real estate and financial investment members on middle-income housing needs.

Indeed, the days of “big box” senior housing are just about over, said senior care trailblazer Dr. Bill Thomas at the recent BUILD conference sponsored by Senior Housing News. He highlighted the Minka ADU experiment he launched as an answer to this a few months ago in Pennsylvania (see, Bill Thomas’s Small House Approach to Dementia, below).

Pertaining specifically ADU legislation, the Seattle, Washington city council opened the door to more permissive ADU-related coding to allow easier development on existing properties that have been heretofore restricted to single family homes. And the online newsletter Accessory Dwellings (see Resources) reported on a flurry of activity creating new financing tools to expedite ADU construction. Financial markets adopting these will be a major factor in jumpstarting the ADU trend.

Finally, in one of the quirkier new developments, a product called U-Build would enable would-be ADU creators to assemble a modular timber structure out of a flat-pack kit of parts, with no construction experience needed. The creator, called Studio Bark, claims “it reduces the scale and complexity of conventional offsite techniques, enabling the building shell to be assembled by people with limited skills and experience using only simple hand tools.”

The build-your-own ADU—what a moneysaving concept.


July 2018 Update

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A major obstacle to the widespread adoption of small-space living in the United States has been the slowness and often reluctance of local government to reform zoning practices to allow it. Many seem to equate it with some pint-size version of a trailer park. But some counties around the country are taking a serious second look as being a solution for future housing difficulties.

Along the same lines, a recent Affordable Housing Week observed by a Utah county confronted the need for government at all levels to address the growing need seniors have for safe, comfortable and affordable housing options, including tiny homes of 300-500 square feet.

If the behemoth known as Google does anything these days it’s big news, and that includes a recent report that Google is exploring ways to incorporate its Nest motion detection sensor technology in development of safe senior housing, allowing close but not intrusive monitoring of residents’ activities—an essential ingredient for practical small housing alternatives.

By the same token, this report sounds a cautionary note on Amazon’s voice-activated assistants Alexa and Echo which, while easier for seniors to adapt to than screen based or keyboard activated devices, require paying careful attention to the particular communication challenges many seniors face


June 9, 2018: Update

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Some interesting general developments in the small home space say a lot about how this new structural solution is progressing in our society. The promise is there, and growing stronger every day, for people needing safe, affordable housing alternatives for themselves and senior loved ones.

Recently the city of Boston put on display what they’re calling the Plugin House, a 360 square foot structure resembling, in concept, the backyard “granny pod” starting to receive nationwide attention. In this case the public was asked, during weeklong tours, to respond with their ideas for best presentation and use of the space. The Plugin House, basically, is expected to take about five hours to build and cost about $50,000.

The Plugin project was sponsored by the city’s year-old Housing Innovation Lab and its Additional Dwelling Unit Pilot Project. This will explore practical ways people might carve out small, independent dwellings within existing homes—and option that could appeal to family members both young and old.

An offshoot of this would be closer attention being paid to the regulatory framework for small house living which, in many communities, still has major concerns to surmount regarding safety, permanence and overall neighborhood appeal.

Meanwhile the online security firm Webroot recently explored the conundrum presented by the Internet of Things. These small sensor-based devices provide the functionality and safety of small spaces designed to house frail, vulnerable elderly (see, for example, “New Technology for Small House Living”, below). Webroot notes that manufacturers of consumer devices have not fully engaged yet with the threat to privacy and internet security posed by sophisticated computer chips not necessarily engineered yet to meet these needs.

Can these devices be hacked to serve as an opening for the insertion of malware in home-based services? Might devices even be subject to direct interference in function, causing dangerous conditions, such as disruption of cardiac pacemakers?

Webroot notes that regulators throughout the country are just starting to come to terms with these issues, with initial emphasis on upgrading major government and commercial applications. But activity benefitting consumers will grow as IOT starts to take hold in the small home arena.

June 1, 2018: Preliminary stirrings for small homes

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It’s still early times for the small-homes-for-aging trend, but there’s movement afoot worth knowing about.

A recent article from the website Curbed notes a continuing moving away in senior housing from the institutionalized nursing homes and assisted living because people are bothered the lack of individuality and affordability they offer.

Author Patrick Sisson describes the “ballooning” interest of the Baby Boom generation in senior housing offering lifestyle amenities, such as fitness rooms, walking trails, lap pools and opportunities to socialize easily and naturally. Universal design, allowing occupants to age in place safely and comfortably, is another growing demand. And urban infill for seniors desiring the convenience and stimulation of city living is starting to develop, particularly as affordability grows in importance.

Even so, most of this growth is still aimed at upper income groups, with entry fees in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and rents of $3,000 a month or more. Affordable housing is only starting to get the attention it needs.

Meanwhile the idea of living one’s senior years in a “tiny” dwelling of some sort is getting some fine-toothed attention from organizations such as the AARP, for whom writer Randy Rieland has recently offered helpful analyses.

Rieland notes the growing appreciation of “tiny houses,” particularly accessory dwelling units (ADUs) for family homes, as affordable housing choices for the elderly. But, he says, ADUs still have legal and regulatory hurdles to surmount in communities throughout the United States.

Part of the problem is getting communities to accept such structures as legitimate neighbors—an attitude that anyone interested in these as a viable alternative should be prepared to deal with.

Rieland also notes the personal decisions that have to be made prior to building and moving into a “tiny” ADU—for example, what about sharing such a relatively small space with a significant other? Will this make sense?

Also, can you really face the need to cull through and part with personal possessions and keepsakes that have accumulated over the years? Some people see the elimination of “stuff” to be the major challenge of any move to senior housing. Some difficult decisions need to be made, and all storage alternatives, including online for important documents, need to be explored.

What about your family’s social life—does it depend largely on in-home parties and hosting? And do your hobbies need significant inside space?

Rieland asks, importantly, can the tiny home you envision be properly equipped to support the needs of aging in place? This is largely the technological realm being explored on this site, and it will pay to stay tuned for developments in this rapidly growing field.