Community Supports for the Aged

This paper examines the concept of community alternatives to institutions for older people from the theoretical vantage point of the need to optimize the mix of challenge and support in matching the residential environment to individual need. Research is reviewed on the characteristics of people inhabiting different types of residential environments and on the impacts such environments have on older people. A variety of residential types (planned independent housing, congregate housing, mobile homes, hotels, small‐scale congregate residences, and more institutional varieties) are discussed as means for increasing the degree of choice among residences afforded the older person.