AARP investigates what makes a livable community.

Today's USA Today carries an article about an ongoing investigation into what factors make a livable community. According to the article: "The AARP Public Policy Institute (PPI) recently published a report that explores the meaning of livability and describes lessons learned by AARP Public Policy Institute PPI as part of its work to measure community livability and quantify the degree to which a community has the elements that are necessary to meet individual needs regardless of age, income, physical ability, ethnicity and other factors."

"We spoke with Rodney Harrell, senior policy adviser in AARP's Public Policy institute, aka AARP's housing expert, about that report as well as another report just published by the PPI, "Is This A Good Place to Live? Measuring Community Quality of Life for All Ages." Here's an excerpt and slightly edited Q&A of that discussion."

This study--and the study's evaluation instrument--seems like an important tool in our discussions.

Click here to see the entire article.

Click here to see the entire AARP Report.

Click here to see the evaluation instrument used in the report.

Ocala over 55 community bulletin board.

The following is an idea from Bob Melzer:

I have look at the blog a couple of times to see what ideas have come up. As with any endeavor communications is a basic ingredient and we need a way to get people to join in and communicate with us.  I think we need a form (like this blog) that encourages communications and from this form could come a lot of community involvement.

Getting communications started, as we can see, is rather hard. A good part of our audience does not even know we exist. Thus I think we have to give them a way to find us as we do not have the resources to find them.

To make the project manageable and of more interest to us, I think we should start out with something like the “Ocala Over 55 Communities Bulletin Board”. (No membership requirements so all could join, just getting a target audience)

We have to use the internet. It will let people that are interested in Ocala and over 55 communities find us when they are searching on the internet. Thus we will be able to start to build a network of individuals that are interested in our community.  Might think of it as the old yellow page phone book where you would go to your heading to find out who might be able to help you.

Of course we need to have heading of interest to the people that find use or else they will not continue to visit the site.

What I am thinking is a bulletin board that is broken down into a number of segments. People could pose questions in a segment and hopefully someone else could provide some insight into the problem.

For example we would have a major bulletin board heading for each over 55 Community. Within that heading items of interest to each community could be sub headings. These could be clubs, upcoming events, trips etc. Since some topics would be of interest to all communities we would also establish major headings covering Home Maintenance, Travel, Medical Services, Helping Hands, Computer etc.

As part of the overall bulletin board it might be easier to find the people that both need the help and the people willing to provide the help in this format as opposed to a group meeting in a room some place in Ocala that most people do not know exists.   What I am basically saying is we use the internet search feature to let people find us and once they do they can easily join in from the confront of their couch or maybe get more involved and start working a improved solutions to the problems presented in our on line community.

Message from Regina

Greetings on this warm Monday to all of you. Dick reminded me that we can use a room at the Candler Community Center for meetings. If possible, I would like us to meet the week of May 19 for about an hour or hour and a half. I want to update you on some thinking about  moving forward to encourage "making a difference." We also need to share your thoughts and ideas. I can do any afternoon after 2:00, mornings are not good. Please let Dick know (comment on this post or email to richst@steinfeldt.com) what day(s) might be best for you and he will find out what is available for meeting.

NPR today had a story out of UT-Dallas, my former university in ancient times. They have a Center for Vital Longevity there and a recent study showed that learning a new skill (they used quilting and digital photography} improved the brain functions in older people more strongly than just socializing or doing so-called "brain-training." I suggest you google "Center for Vital Longevity UT-Dallas" and check it out. The site has several excellent reports that you can download. For those interested in the lavender and rosemary spritzers, we have only three Tuesday 9-12 sessions left at H&R: May 6, 13, 20.

I will be publishing my new blog, "Create and Be Well" on Sunday, May 11 for the first time. Please email me if you want me to send you the link.

I look forward to seeing everyone and our helping each other to find a good way to make a difference.

55+ community resources for "aging in place."

As we age, we need additional physical and/or emotional resources to allow us to continue to live in the community which has become our home. Use this page to leave comments which identify these resources. If they are currently available, please give information concerning how they may be accessed (address, phone, website, etc.). If the resource is not available--or you're not sure--please note that.

This list of resources will be collected and added to our website.

Ideas concerning where we go from here.

When we left the session, we were addressing the question of "where do we go from here." Ideas?