2023 AARP Community Challenge Demonstration Grantees

• Green Valley: Valley Assistance Services
  This project will provide volunteer transportation services to older adults in a rural community.  The organization will recruit, hire and train new volunteer drivers, distribute flyers and initiate community outreach.  

• Phoenix: Elaine
  This project will expand a transportation assistance program that connects older adults to activities that support their health and well-being. The free service prioritizes low-income clients, including people experiencing homelessness and other vulnerable populations.

CALIFORNIA

• Long Beach: Healthy Aging Center
  This program will provide rides for adults aged 55 and older who lack other means of transportation to essential services needed for their health and well-being. 

• Los Angeles: Asian Americans for Housing and Environmental Justice
  This project will increase public transportation use and mobility for older Asian American Pacific Islanders by reducing language, cultural and technological barriers to access.

GEORGIA

• Madison: City of Madison
  This project will improve the local sidewalk network by making repairs and adding pedestrian signals and crosswalks for greater safety. It will also create a small park with benches, a pavilion and landscaping that will benefit older adults in nearby neighborhood.

LOUISANA

• Baton Rouge: Delta Chapter of the Sierra Club
  This project will create a video to depict a typical day on local transit. It will organize community meetings with the aim of bringing residents who use the Baton Rouge area bus system together with its operators to improve service and increase ridership.

MAINE

• Saco: Age-Friendly Saco
  This project will provide a flexible shuttle service as a transportation option for older residents in the region, helping them to shop for groceries, attend social events and run errands.  

NEW JERSEY

• Toms River: Caregiver Volunteers of Central Jersey
  This project will expand a volunteer medical transportation program which aims to serve residents aged 60+ and enable them to continue to live independently.

NORTH CAROLINA

• Chapel Hill: Town of Chapel Hill
  This project will install pedestrian safety islands with garden beds, LED lighting and signs on streets in Chapel Hill, to make them safer for pedestrians, particularly those who are older adults.

OHIO

• Cincinnati: Council on Aging of Southwestern Ohio
  The project will create an online portal for older adults and their caregivers so they can schedule their own specialized transportation and receive trip updates. 

OKLAHOMA

• McLoud: Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma
  This project will expand transportation services to older adults, including recruiting volunteer drivers who will operate a ride-sharing service.

TEXAS

• Dallas: Better Block Foundation
  The project will revive a local farmers market by creating a space for it in a vacant lot and making sidewalk connections so that people of all ages and abilities can navigate the area.

WASHINGTON

• Lynnwood: Homage Senior Services
  This project will provide fare-free rides to seniors, making transit more accessible and affordable while also demonstrating the benefits of rural transit routes in underserved communities.

• Tucson: City of Tucson Planning and Development Services Department
  This project will develop a design competition to promote accessory dwelling units and create a model plan catalog featuring designs that support a variety of needs, including for older adults and multigenerational families.

CALIFORNIA

• Fresno: USGBC Central California
  Funding will support a competition that will invite local students and the design, construction and engineering community to design a sustainable accessory dwelling unit that can be used in a multigenerational setting.

FLORIDA

• Greater Miami: Miami Center for Architecture & Design, Inc.
  In an effort to encourage construction of accessory dwelling units for infill housing, this project will launch an ADU design competition. The contest will recognize designs that emphasize sustainability, affordability and accessibility with a focus on providing homes for people age 50-plus.

• Tampa: Habitat for Humanity of Hillsborough County
  This project will promote accessory dwelling units as an affordable, accessible housing option through a design competition. Teams from local architecture firms, as well as participants from high school and college architecture programs, will present their ADU designs. 

HAWAII

• Līhuʻe: Better Block Hawaiʻi
  This project will create a competition to solicit accessory dwelling unit designs and promote ADUs as an opportunity for affordable housing, particularly for older adults. It will culminate in a book, available online and free of charge, to further best practices and knowledge sharing around ADU development.

IOWA

• Iowa City: Johnson Community Livable Community Housing Action Team
  The project will stage a competition for children age 17 and younger, who will design Lego replicas of accessory dwelling units to promote the housing type as an affordable option for older adults. 

KENTUCKY

• Louisville: Louisville Metro Planning and Design Services
   This project will host a design competition to select and purchase at least three preapproved plans for accessory dwelling units, which will then be available to the public free of charge.

MINNESOTA

• Lake City: Lake City Port Authority
  This project will provide older homeowners access to accessory dwelling unit design blueprints, selected through a design competition, as well as information about the benefits of ADUs.

NEW JERSEY

• Montclair: Montclair Gateway to Aging in Place
  The grant will fund a design competition that will provide homeowners with plans for building accessory dwelling units and documentation for obtaining planning board approval. 

NEW YORK

• Suffolk County: Suffolk County Economic Development Corporation
  This grant will support a competition to encourage residents to envision new ways of designing accessory dwelling units, which can offer a needed form of affordable housing that can be seamlessly integrated into neighborhoods. 

TEXAS

• San Antonio: Citymakery 
  A design competition for accessory dwelling units will encourage families and students to think creatively about ADUs as a way to create multigenerational households and provide for older family members so they can age in place. 

UTAH

• Salt Lake City: SLC Neighbors for More Neighbors
  This project will conduct a tour of local accessory dwelling units, an increasingly popular housing option for older adults, and host a design showcase for ADUs.

VERMONT

• Waitsfield: Yestermorrow Design/Build School
  The project will host an accessory dwelling unit design competition, in an effort to help alleviate Vermont’s shortage of housing.

VIRGINIA

• Roanoke: City of Roanoke
  The project will stage an accessory dwelling unit design competition that will increase public awareness of this housing option. The competition will result in a set of plans that homeowners and developers can use to build an ADU on a single-family residential lot.

WASHINGTON

• Bellingham: Sustainable Connections
  This project will launch an accessory dwelling unit design competition and make plans for ADUs available to the public in order to promote the housing solution, particularly for older residents.

WISCONSIN

• Altoona: City of Altoona
  The city will hold an accessory dwelling unit design competition in order to promote their use as a housing solution.  The competition will include an open house and presentations of the concepts to help educate builders and the broader community about ADUs.