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VOL.26, NO.12
Making aging easier in D.C. PHOTO COURTESY OF AGE-FRIENDLY D.C.
By Barbara Ruben When residents of the Residences at Thomas Circle, a senior community in downtown Washington, try to navigate the traffic-clogged streets to walk to a nearby CVS, they often get marooned on a small island of pavement halfway across busy 14th Street. The light’s timing doesn’t allow them to get all the way across. For people in wheelchairs and walkers, the short trip from home to pick up prescriptions can be particularly dangerous, said Ed Duggan, who uses a motorized wheelchair. And the street is just the first hurdle. Often, stores don’t have doors that automatically open, or a ramp that allows his wheelchair to negotiate the step up into the doorway. But Duggan hopes these and other impediments for older adults in the District of Columbia will be lessened with Washington’s new Age-Friendly D.C. initiative. The plan is part of an international effort established by the World Health Organization (WHO) to improve the experience of growing older in urban areas.
5 0 DECEMBER 2014
I N S I D E …
TECHNOLOGY
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An exclusive designation
L E I S U R E & T R AV E L
While most jurisdictions in the Washington area, including the District of Columbia, have crafted plans to respond to rapidly aging populations [see sidebar “What’s the plan?” on page 27], the AgeFriendly City designation is one that just 40 communities across the U.S. are currently trying to obtain. Certification entails a rigorous five-year process that focuses city leaders, businesses and government agencies on improving the elements that affect the quality of life of residents as they grow older. In 1950, just 7 percent of Washington, D.C. residents were 65 or older. By 2013, their proportion jumped to 11.4 percent. And while the percentage of Washingtonians 65+ is somewhat lower than in the country as a whole, it will continue to climb as the tide of baby boomers age. “This is not a temporary blip. We are going to a new level of how many older people there will be in cities,” said Gail Kohn, Age-Friendly D.C. coordinator. “When people look at those data, they say, ‘Whoa, D.C. is going to be a different place.’”
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Washington, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray joins other residents in a block-by-block walk that combs the city for problem areas — from cracked sidewalks and broken street lights to boarded up buildings and dangerous street crossings — as part of the Age-Friendly D.C. Initiative. Washington is one of about 40 U.S. cities working to achieve the Age-Friendly designation, conferred by the World Health Organization on urban areas that have taken steps to make life safer and more comfortable for older residents.
Washington started the process of becoming an Age-Friendly City in 2012 and is now wrapping up the strategic planning stage. The resulting plan will be reviewed by AARP’s Age-Friendly Communities program before being submitted to WHO. Then comes a multi-year implementation phase. Formal designation is forecast for 2017. “This is a journey. It’s like accreditation,” Kohn said. Other cities in the process of being certified stretch across the country from Honolulu to Des Moines to Atlanta. The Age-Friendly DC strategic plan will be unveiled by outgoing Mayor Vincent Gray at a press conference on Dec. 10.
Surveying every block Getting to this point has involved months of work, led by a task force consisting of personnel from most D.C. government agencies, as well as business leaders, academics and community activists. The effort has also involved hundreds of residents and volunteers, who have helped comb every inch of the District, walking block by block to ferret out problem areas. Walkers made notes of every sidewalk crack that could raise the potential for falling, the location of benches, vacant store fronts and public restrooms. They surveyed grocery prices to determine if See AGE-FRIENDLY, page 26
page 48 FITNESS & HEALTH 14 k How to wean off sleeping pills k Help for thinning hair SPOTLIGHT ON AGING k Newsletter for D.C. seniors
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LAW & MONEY k Tips for holiday tipping k Year-end tax moves
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LIFETIMES k News from the Charles E. Smith Life Communites
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ARTS & STYLE 61 k A manic, musical k Norman Lear’s new memoir PLUS CROSSWORD, BEACON BITS, CLASSIFIEDS & MORE