Senior living communities target people over 55 years old, and specialize in providing housing adapted to the requirements of older people. The communities are also referred to as active-adult communities or age-restricted communities. They offer independent living, but might also offer facilities for assisted living. Some senior living communities offer single-family houses that seniors can purchase, while others are flat communities with rental units. The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) modulates senior communities to ensure their compliance with the Housing for Older Persons Act of 1995 (HOPA).

Age Qualifications

At least 80 percent of those units in a senior living community, whether for purchase or for rent, must have one occupant who is 55 years old or older. In order to maintain the designation of a senior living community, HUD requires management to conduct an audit of its residents every two decades, and then submit the age of each individual living in the community to HUD. This survey requires that each occupant must show identification such as a drivers license, military ID, state-issued ID, immigration card, passport or birth certificate. The community must maintain a copy of the questionnaire submitted to HUD.

Marketing

Apart from recording the ages of the community’s residents, the direction of an active adult community must market the units specifically into the senior community. Twenty per cent of the housing units can be inhabited by residents younger than 55, however, HUD wants to make sure that the community directs its promotion and marketing to the senior community and not to younger households. In smaller communities, advertising to senior citiens might not be a problem, but a few senior develpments are massive, with thousands of units. HUD regulations guarantee that a developer doesn’t target the younger market in its marketing materials. When there’s proof that the marketing has been targeted to younger households, the community may reduce its designation as a senior community.

Community Design

HOPA demands that senior communities be separate from other housing units in a large development. If the 55-plus community is a rental community, all the apartments have to be in a building that’s separate from unrestricted rentals inside the community. In for-sale home communities, the most active adult housing needs to be contiguous. By way of example, if a builder wants to make a senior living community inside an existing planned community, she must make sure that the senior units are different and separate from houses being sold to the mainstream industry. This can be accomplised by fencing the parcel or utilizing streets and roads as a boundary.

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