The housing continuum is characterized both by its physical features and by attributes of its occupants. This continuum ranges from fully independent households and includes a variety of housing types. The residents in independent households are capable of their own housekeeping, cooking, and personal care. The housing typically used by this group includes single-family houses, apartment, retirement communites, and mobile homes.
Semidependent households include people who may require assistance in more activites of daily living such as cooking, cleaning, or personal care. Residents in single-family homes or apartment houses, or those living with other family members or friends, may be considered semidependent householders if they need and receive personal care of other assistance in their activities of daily living. This group is the principal target for such home-based service as adult day health services, and meals on wheels. Another category of semidependent households include people in such facilities as boarding and care homes, retirement hotels, and conyinuing-care homes. These facilities may include meals, cleaning services, and some personal care as either required or optional services to their residents.
Dependent householders are those individuals who need assistance in such things as ambylation, personal care, grooming, drug use, or eating. Such persons usually live in intermediate-care or skilled nursing-care facilities, although some could live in other settings if adequate assistance were available.
A relatively new and novel approach addressing the housing and health-care needs of the elderly is the Continuing Care Retirement Community(CCRC). The continuing care concept is founded primarily in the the comvination of health-care servision for housing and delivery of healthe-care services to the dldely. The financing mechanism used to found these services is unigue among housing alternative for the over-age-sixty-five population. CCRCs (also known as Life-Care Communities) are defined to have the following characteristics :
The physical plant consists of independent living units and generally has one or more of the following facilities : congregate living, personal care, intermediate nursing care, and skilled nursing care.
The community guarantees housing and access to various health-care services under a contract with residents that lasts for more than one year.
The additional fees for resident health care, if any, are less than full costs of such services, implying an insurance approach to finance the health-care costs of contract-holders.
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