A new initiative seeks to plan with older residents in Columbus rather than plan for them. Mike Foley explains.
It’s called Age-Friendly Columbus and targets residents 50 years of age and older. Established by the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, the effort follows up on research on the state of aging and the issues older adults face. Last month, the group mailed surveys to 1500 randomly-selected residents. Community coordinator Katie White says a little more than 500 have been completed.
“We know we’re gonna hear about some housing concerns - affordability, adaptability, folks that have been living in their homes a long time, and concerns about getting up their stairs and the safety of it. We’re also looking at transportation. We ask a lot of questions about healthcare and even some general questions about employment, social respect, inclusion, that sort of thing. Over the next couple of months, we’ll be holding some focus groups and digging down into what are some of the issues you can’t really capture on a survey that the older adults want to make sure we hear.”
The first of those forums takes place Tuesday in Beechwold, with another scheduled October 20th in Linden. An online version of the survey will be available through the end of this month at agefriendlycolumbus.org. White says she hopes for a stronger connection between generations and that through collaboration, the city will be better for all age groups
