Do We Need Social Security for Our Houses, Too?

Over the coming two decades, a vast share of Americans – a group the size of which we’ve never seen before – is slated to age into retirement and beyond. And unlike their parents’ and grandparents’ generations, most of these people do not plan to go willingly to the old folks’ home. In the new buzz phrase of policymakers, 80-90 percent of these aging Baby Boomers say they want to "age in place."

There is just one problem: our places are not fit for the aged. Federal legislation like the Americans with Disabilities Act has slowly been changing the way we build for the past 20 years, so that newer multi-family complexes and a fraction of all housing built with public funds can accommodate, say, a walker or a wheelchair, or someone who can’t make it to the second floor to use the bathroom. But the real obstacle for an aging America has not yet been touched: our national army of privately built single-family homes.