Residential Satisfaction of the Elderly in Cooperatively Owned Housing and Rental Housing

Aging is accompanied with numerous transitions in life, and residential environment becomes a pivotal part of the elderly’s lives. Physically supportive housing linked with services emerges in midst of the reality that retrofitting housing with special features has been seriously underfunded. The purpose of this study was to examine the residential satisfaction of the elderly in two types of independent living arrangements specially designed for the elderly. The indices of residential supportiveness were developed, and the questionnaire survey was adopted for data collection. Two hundred eighty residents living in two different kinds of senior housing participated in the survey, and all the collected responses were used for data analysis. The finding showed that almost all of the elderly positively assessed their senior living. That is, the statistical analysis illustrated that satisfaction indices of senior living significantly and positively contributed the satisfaction with overall residential environment. Satisfaction with physical environment was the only strong predictor in explaining current residential satisfaction of the elderly in senior rental housing, and accounted for a small proportion of the variance in the dependent variable. Since affordability was the biggest concern among residents in senior housing, it was of significance that long-term housing affordability was ensured and reduction in service cost by utilizing economies of scale was pursued.