Addressing the Housing Challenges of an Aging Population: Initiatives by Blueroof Technologies in McKeesport, Pennsylvania

Abstract

Accommodating the preference of the growing elderly population to age independently, at home and in the community, requires innovative and cost-effective neighborhood retrofit plans. Retrofitting existing homes and infilling available neighborhood land parcels with “smart homes,” equipped with technologies that enable monitoring and assessment as a means of ensuring the quality and efficiency of home care and health care provision, is intrinsic to these efforts. Blueroof Technologies, Inc., in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, has developed and demonstrated a number of in-home and neighborhood-scale technologies and is working with the local McKeesport municipality to restore an economically distressed neighborhood to accommodate successful aging in place. This paper describes the Blueroof “BlueNode,” “BlueKiosk,” “Smart Cottage,” and “McKIZ,” a McKeesport neighborhood restoration initiative, which incorporates the use of smart cottages and neighborhood-scale interventions to address the housing challenges of an aging population. The technologies and neighborhood retrofit methods described in this paper could serve as a cost-effective template for restoring low- to middle-income neighborhoods to enable successful, mixed-generation aging in communities domestically and abroad.