From the "Technical Assistance Quarterly from the National Resource and Policy Center on Housing and Long-Term Care"

"Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities" (NORCs)

What is a NORC?

The fact that older people want and tend to age in place is now almost as well recognized as the aging of the population. A considerable number of older people live in buildings or neighborhoods where disproportionate numbers of older people live. According to a 1992 American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) survey, 27% of older people live in a "building or neighborhood where more than 50% of the residents are over 60." The AARP report calls these naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCS) "the most dominant and overlooked form of senior housing." A national study conducted at the Heller School's Policy Center on Aging (Brandeis University) supports this conclusion.

Not surprisingly, people associated with the aging network, health and supportive service delivery, and housing are paying increasing attention to linking services with housing generally and NORCs specifically.

Background

The fact that disproportionate numbers of older people live in some areas has long been recognized by planners and demographers. The phrase "naturally occurring retirement community," coined in the 1980s by Michael Hunt and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, originally referred primarily to areas that attracted, but were not planned for, older immigrants. More recently, the term has evolved to mean any building or neighborhood where more than 50% of the residents are over 60, or indeed where a disproportionate number are over 60. As one observer noted, "The point is that there is an area where a lot of older people are living."

Precise definitions aside, however, the only generalization that can be made about NORCs is: "If you've seen one NORC, you've seen one NORC." NORCs vary by:

• location-- although predictably most common in urban areas, NORCs exist across the country and in rural and suburban areas as well

• physical dimensions

• population size

• demographic characteristics (such as income, occupational and educational history, marital status, level of frailty, state and type of housing stock, race, cultural background)

• reasons for existence: NORCs may develop because older people move into an area or building, because younger people move out, or for both reasons

• ownership characteristics: a closed NORC has one owner or management entity (such as a condominium complex, an apartment building, a cooperative, or a mobile home park); an open NORC includes multiple owners or management entities, such as a neighborhood of one- or two-family homes

Why should the aging network care about NORCs?

Both the number of older people who live in NORCs and the challenges and opportunities in NORCs make them of interest to the aging network. Ile challenges include those faced by relatively more troubled NORCS, such as those with a high rate of older people living alone or with very low incomes, or with deteriorating housing. The opportunities include potential economies of scale in NORCs-for example, service providers might:

• cluster services and serve more people for the same amount of money

• target services (e.g. transportation, home-delivered meals, and outreach/education) more effectively to the dense populations of older people in NORCs

• locate certain services (e.g. a senior center, a satellite office, or a clinic) in the NORC area

• use NORCs as a good testing ground to develop affordable, private-pay services for older people who are ineligible for existing subsidized services may find NORCs a good place to start

• take advantage of NORC locations and density in building programs and initiatives as part of long-term planning

AAAs interested in NORCs may also learn from existing programs intentionally linking NORCs and services. These programs are increasing across the country. Few are extensive, however, and the Brandeis study found programs only in closed NORCS. Many of these closed NORCs programs look very much like program, linking planned senior housing and services. A common example is an apartment building in which the owner, manager, or cooperative association contracts with a social services agency to provide some services (usually social work, case management, or information and referral). One senior center provides training, support, and information to property managers of several private, market-rate NORC apartment buildings. Most seem to have developed in a reactive rather than a proactive way- e.g., an agency becomes aware of a NORC building in its catchment area because of the number of crisis calls from the same location; or a building manager requests an agency's help with dealing with problems associated with aging in place. A few organizations are exploring and implementing an exciting model that pays specific attention to building a sense of community, including working with residents to develop social and educational programs, and develops new services (on a fee-for-service basis) according to consumer interest.

The most extensive NORCs programs that the Brandeis study found are in New York City, in large cooperative apartment buildings that are idiosyncratic because of their size. Working in close cooperation with existing service agencies, these programs offer access to a wide range of publicly subsidized as well as private-pay services. Since 1986, UJA-Federation in New York has sponsored a comprehensive program of social, health, and individual services at the Penn South Cooperative Housing in Manhattan that reaches over one thousand seniors a year. In 1993, with funds from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and local foundations, they initiated broad new programs of social, health, case management, and transportation services at two large moderate income housing cooperatives containing over six thousand senior residents. According to UJA-Federation staff, NORCs are an ideal setting for delivering home and community-based supportive and health services efficiently and appropriately. 'ne key features of the UJA-Federation programs are:

• The program at each housing cooperative reflects the needs of its elderly residents, as expressed through surveys, focus groups, forums, and advisory committees

• The cooperative corporations themselves are paying a substantial share of the costs of the supportive services

• The program follows a "social model" rather than a medical model and emphasizes community-building and socialization

• The on-site program at each development is directed and coordinated by an experienced social service agency familiar with the needs of its elderly residents

• Each program is governed by a committee representing the cooperative's management, board of directors, elderly residents, and agencies providing the services

• Residents of each coop provide a measurable share of the group services through a volunteer corps

Over time, NORCs programs may help to stabilize neighborhoods, improve property values, reduce older residents' isolation, and postpone institutionalization. Organized NORCs residents might press for changes in zoning laws as well as modifications that make the neighborhood more accommodating, such as curb cuts or longer walk lights. Attending to NORCs may improve the way an agency does business, which may benefit all older people in the area.

Moving Ahead: The Aging Network and NORCs

At the least, the aging network should know the location of NORCs in their areas, learn more about them, and consider initiating discussions with residents and with other agencies and organizations to undertake some of the initiatives mentioned earlier. AAAs interested in new ideas -- e.g., forging stronger linkages with well elders and creating preventative programs -- may also find NORCs relatively low-cost, low-risk place to test these ideas.

Proactive steps may improve NORCs' ability to support older residents' aging in place as well as AAAs' ability to fulfill, or even expand, their mission.

[Susan Lanspery, Ph.D., is an Associate of the National Resource and Policy Center on Housing and Long Term Care]