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- [00:02]
Rachel
Hi, it's Rachel here, Director of Movement building at Strong Towns. I'm popping in to invite you to our upcoming Locomotive Training Sessions, a series of live virtual workshops focused on equipping advocates with the tools they need to make their places stronger. This fall we have eight sessions featuring a whole range of guest speakers who are deeply part of the Strong Towns movement. We're going to be hearing about everything from pre approved housing plans to to implementing the Strong Towns approach as an elected official to building a neighborhood where kids can be independent. Locomotive Workshops take place every Thursday from 12 to 1pm Central starting September 18th and ending November 6th. Big news. This year we are making this whole series of workshops absolutely free for Strong Towns members. We're doing this because our members are those folks who have stepped up and said they are dedicated to this movement and we want to give back to you the tools that you need to help make your town stronger where you live. So if you're a member, please join us absolutely free. You'll find a code to access your free ticket in your email inbox if.
- [01:10]
Abby Newsham
You haven't seen it already.
- [01:11]
Rachel
Or hit me up if you need access to that. For those that aren't ready to become a member, you can still just buy a ticket. $25 for a single session or $125 for all eight sessions. If you're interested in membership, head to strongtowns.orgmembership to become a member today. And if you want to get your locomot ticket, strongtowns.org locomotive thanks so much. Hope to see you there.
- [01:43]
Abby Newsham
This is Abby and you are listening to Upzone. Hi everyone. Thanks for listening to another episode of Upzone, a show where we take a big story from the news each week that touches the Strong Towns conversation. And we Upzone it, we talk about it in depth. I'm Abby Newsham, a planner in Kansas City and today I am joined by a very special guest, another Kansas City and who has not been on this show before, Katie Claggett. Katie, Is that how you pronounce your last name? I feel like I've seen it in writing, but I. That's how I sounded out in my head. So Katie Claggett, she is super awesome. She's an unconventional small scale developer. She's been at the Strong Towns national gathering at least once. But Katie, maybe you can tell the audience a little bit more about yourself.
- [02:46]
Katie Claggett
Yeah, sure. So I'm Katie Clagett. I'm originally from Colorado Springs, which will come in a little bit later when we talk about this article. But I've been in the Kansas City area since college. Essentially. I've worked in real estate for the past 10 years. I currently work as a commercial real estate appraiser. But then outside of work, I spend my time doing kind of weird off the wall, what I call unconventional small scale development projects. So I've renovated an 1858 house. It's kind of a folk art house with lots of interesting handmade details. I worked on street murals in Lawrence, Kansas. I worked on the renovation of a house to convert it to a community center for a community garden in Kansas City. And then most recently I've been working on a paper alley reclamation project in my neighborhood in Kansas City. It's a paper alley and so we're. That had become completely overgrown over the years, so we brought in sheep. We had something that we called Flock Party. We had a big community event. And we're trying to get this alley activated because I love alleys. So that's kind of what I do in my free time. And eventually I want to transition full time into development. And right now I'm particularly interested in infill housing and specifically infill housing for aging in place. So that's kind of, that's kind of a little bit about me. I really like Kansas City. I've been here for six years total. Really enjoy it. And yeah, it's kind of where I'm at. Yeah.
- [04:29]
Abby Newsham
And everybody loves a good alley. And I feel like Kansas City, in Kansas City alleys are kind of rare. Only a couple of neighborhoods really have them and they're so underutilized.
- [04:42]
Katie Claggett
They really are. I'm truly obsessed with alleys. On my first date with my now fiance, I took him on a walk down my favorite alley in Kansas City. And. And it's just a sign of, I think how much he liked me that he was willing to walk down an Alley at 10 o' clock with a girl he had just met. And he ended up proposing to me in that same alley last year. So I just, I just love alleys. I think they're so interesting. They're such a unique view of cities.
- [05:13]
Abby Newsham
Yeah, yeah, they really are. And you know, they're. They're kind of unconventional public spaces that, that when they're activated. Right. They're really lovely. When I was in D.C. a few months ago, I had the opportunity to take a tour of some alleys. They have a Washington alley project there. And yeah, just some beautiful, some beautiful work that they've been doing there. And I'd love to see that happen in Kansas City. So it's cool that you've been leading the charge there to kind of reclaim some of these alleys.
- [05:46]
Katie Claggett
Thank you. Yeah, it's a lot of work. We're doing it totally without support of the city because they don't maintain them. They don't want to, as far as I know. And there are a ton of them in my neighborhood. So there's a lot of really interesting potential there. It just, you know, just takes some time, take some work.
- [06:02]
Abby Newsham
But yeah, definitely. So maybe, maybe I'll have to invite you back to talk about alleys sometime. We can find a great article to talk about because today we are going to talk about housing, not just any housing, housing for seniors. So we are covering a feature from the Colorado sun entitled as Colorado Ages, Seniors are colliding with the housing crisis. So this story highlights how Colorado's population is rapidly aging. Soon one in five people in the state will be over 65 years old. But the housing stock was not built with their needs in mind. Many seniors are stuck in multi level homes that can't be easily modified and they can't afford to maintain them either, or they can't find accessible single, single story homes to downsize into. So as a result, less inventory is entering the market for younger families. And low income seniors are basically burying high costs from taxes, insurance and necessary home repairs. And there aren't a lot of options for them to actually move out of those houses. So today we are going to explore what that means for communities generally and how we can reshape housing and maybe make it more adaptable and equitable across all age groups. And also exploring kind of how we build, how do we build resilient places that support and don't strangle both older and younger generations. So, Katie, I appreciate you bringing this story. It's good timing because I was having a lot of conversations this week actually about senior housing just because of some work that I'm doing. And it's been on my mind. So I'm glad that this was an article that you wanted to talk about. What's been your kind of personal experience with this story? You said you're from Colorado. Is this a story that kind of touches you personally?
- [08:14]
Katie Claggett
So I like this story. It was done by the Colorado sun out of Denver. It's part of a larger series that they're doing right now called Aging in Colorado. I think there are like seven articles right now and I chose it because, for one, I'm exploring different opportunities and options for trying to develop infill housing for seniors in my neighborhood. So I'm really trying to kind of learn more about it, learn more about, you know, what components would need to be in that housing to make them, you know, aging in place, appropriate, that kind of thing. There are a ton of seniors in my neighborhood in Kansas City. So being exposed to so many seniors, it just really makes me want to figure out how to build housing that they could live in. And then the other part is that my mom, Marianne Clagett, she worked as an activity professional. So what that means is she worked in nursing homes and she planned activities for seniors. So that was what she did right out of college. And then she started a magazine called Creative Forecasting that she edited and wrote, published for over 30 years. And it was geared specifically towards activity professionals who work in nursing homes. So I kind of have this, you know, this heritage of working with seniors in my life and I think that because of my interest in housing and development, this is one of the ways that I might be able to express that heritage. So. So yeah, it's just, it's just really interesting. And you know, my mom said something to me last year. There was like a prompt we were talking about, it was like, if you had unlimited money, what would you do? And my mom said I would build a community where there was housing for seniors and kids and people of all ages, where there were trails and animals. And it was just like this, this like lovely, idyllic sounding place.
- [10:21]
Abby Newsham
I'm like, that sounds amazing, mom.
- [10:24]
Katie Claggett
I want you to be a real estate developer too. So I've just really been, been thinking about that too as part of all of this.
- [10:33]
Abby Newsham
So, so yeah, it's, it's interesting to think about the needs of seniors and, and the housing that we have. You know, I, in my neighborhood, I just happened to live in a neighborhood where I don't know if it was Habitat or. Another non profit housing developer had built several infill single family houses that are all accessible. So they, they have little porches, but they, there's no stair, they're completely wheelchair accessible and there's like a whole block of them. And they're actually pretty well designed. They're like craftsman style. I don't know what year they were built, but I don't think that they're older than 20 years or so. But it's interesting that that's not the norm for infill housing and we just don't really see a lot of that. And likewise, most of the homes that we do have, even if we want to retrofit them, they just don't really have the ability to be accessible for I think a certain, certain type of senior, not, not all seniors need, need their houses to be 100% accessible. But I think the article mentions that trips and falls become a significant hazard for people. So at least having limited stairs is ideal. What do you think this tells us about our planning and development priorities generally and why we aren't kind of building in a way that supports all age groups?
- [12:09]
Katie Claggett
Well, I think, I think that mostly we are not as a society, as a culture, in a habit of thinking towards the long term. Right. And that's largely a function of. We live in a capitalist society where profit drives many things and profit is not derived in 50 years. Right. It's derived in five years, 10 years. And so we just, we just haven't been looking towards the future. And you know, this article, it interviewed a broker in Denver who just said, I have been talking to builders, trying to get them to at least put a bedroom on the first floor of these town homes they're building. And I don't understand why they're not. I don't understand why nobody has seen this need coming when the demographics have been very clear for a long time. So I think it's largely a function of our short term thinking. But then there's also the component of, I assume that adding in these accessibility features, namely zero entry, single story and wider hallways and wider doorways, those seem to be the kind of main structural things. I imagine that they add some additional cost, but I don't know how much. So that probably also factors in. And then I think that when we think about accessibility, it's kind of an all or nothing thing. But I think the reality is that if we were to focus more on these three main elements and we built them into new construction, that house could work for a single person, a family with young kids. It could work for, you know, people in their 50s. And then it could also work for elderly people, disabled people. It. And we just don't, we just don't think about it like that, how it could be universal in that sense. So.
- [14:12]
Abby Newsham
Well, and what's unfortunate about that too is that, I mean, as the article spells out, even though these houses were not built for seniors, seniors are still aging in place largely. And so that's lengthening housing turnover. It's making it harder for young buyers to actually purchase those homes and, and utilize them. A lot of, I mean, I think of, I think of even my dad, he's, he's in the house that he's been in for 20 years and he would die if he. If I called him a senior. So if you're listening, you're not a senior. But, you know, it's, it is, it's not uncommon that, that people who maybe raise their families in these big suburban houses, they end up kind of stuck there because they don't see a real option and they don't necessarily want to move unless they really have to, unless there's a real need to, especially in this market.
- [15:13]
Katie Claggett
Yeah, I think the article talked about a couple of issues. One of those is there's not a good substitute. Right. They have. Some seniors have a lot of equity in their homes, but the housing market has changed and is crazy. And it's really hard for them to, even if they're downsizing significantly, find something that they like that fits in with these kind of aging in place parameters. There's that issue and then there's the issue of, well, if you have a ton of equity in your house and you sell it, that income could actually affect how much Medicare, Medicaid you receive because it's such a boost in income. Yeah, I didn't realize that either. So that's just like one more kind of thing that might prevent seniors from selling their house and adding it back to the inventory. But, you know, three in four seniors want to age in place. And aging in place is, from what I can tell from talking to my mom from reading articles, it is the best option for seniors, especially if you're able to add on home care option. It's the best option for seniors as long as seniors are not isolated within their homes. So that's kind of a really big part of it is making sure there's still a strong community around seniors even if they are still aging in place. But it's just, it's just like the housing market in general. It's so complicated and there are so many different factors that go into it. It's just kind of crazy. But you know, one. One thing that's clear is that like all of us seniors want more housing options. Right. That's just. Everybody wants that. Everybody wants alternatives that are not in the market right now.
- [17:02]
Abby Newsham
Yeah. And it's interesting. I think the article brings up the Insight that nearly 37% of seniors spend over 30% of their income on housing, even if they own their house outright, which was interesting because they may have a lot of equity in their house, but that's not liquid cash that they can actually utilize. It's in the house, and it kind of begs the question of what does it say when owning your house kind of isn't enough and how can we have more local resilience so that seniors are not, I guess, pushed into precarity.
- [17:45]
Katie Claggett
Right, right. Yeah. The article was talking about how, you know, some organizations, they have seniors who are literally like camping in their homes, you know, they maybe have turned off the water because they can't afford the bill, you know, and they just aren't able to maintain their properties. It's a really, it's, it's kind of a scary, it's kind of a scary situation that we're, we're setting ourselves up for here over the next 25 years.
- [18:13]
Abby Newsham
Well, yeah, and I mean, if it could be even longer thinking about, you know, if you and I live until we're seniors, like we're all going to be seniors hopefully one day. And so this is something that I think is, is worth thinking about. In a perfect world, you would build all the housing to be multi generational in some way, that it can suit a variety of different age groups. But the reality is that we have a bunch of existing housing stock and they're really having a variety of housing stock is good because it can meet a variety of different needs, age groups, incomes, etc. But what happens when we have a, I guess financial, financial instances where people, people don't actually have the ability to move through the housing market to, to align themselves with the housing typology that best suits their needs. It's seems like we have a lot of mismatch right now just because of that lack of fluidity due to our, you know, financial system, the economy and, and other other things that are influencing that.
- [19:35]
Katie Claggett
Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's a huge issue. I also think about like in Colorado, you know, I grew up there and I remember one of the kind of defining features of my memories there is just the sprawl, right? So much sprawl in Colorado. And these are usually like, you know, two story houses, several thousand square feet, probably with the basement, and they're far outside the city center. And I think about like, if seniors have to stay in those houses, you know, I have a hard time seeing or understanding how they wouldn't become isolated considering that there's not good transportation options. Obviously there's still the opportunity to build community even if you're in kind of a sprawly suburb. But I just imagine it gets harder and harder in those kind of like homogenous subdivisions. Right. That's where diverse diversity of housing stock, if they had their house and then an ADU behind it. @ least there's somebody else that they can kind of create a micro community with or whatever.
- [20:37]
Abby Newsham
Yeah, well, I think that's where this, this conversation about parked equity comes into play. Right. Because equity does mean that there's some opportunity to maybe finance another model, but it has to align with, with desire and needs. And I guess when it comes to retrofitting existing housing stock, there's some political will questions behind that. Um, there's been a lot of communities that have allowed accessory dwelling units, so people can take that, you know, three car garage that's, that's attached to their house and convert that into an accessible unit and then allow a family to move in. I've actually seen in my neighborhood, I'm obsessed with this, with this building. There's a, there's a house and it's a pretty stately, nice old house down the street that it's probably worth, I don't know, like, $400,000. And that's high in Kansas City, by the way, for anyone who's listening, who is in a different kind of market. So that's, that's high for, for, you know, midtown, downtown Kansas City area, I think. But they had a detached garage that became an ADU and they actually split the lot. And so they were able to sell it and for like $200,000. So it became a litter home. Do you know what I'm talking about?
- [22:11]
Katie Claggett
The one you're talking?
- [22:12]
Abby Newsham
Of course we do. Of course you do that.
- [22:14]
Katie Claggett
How did they split that and sell it?
- [22:16]
Abby Newsham
I love it. Yeah, that's so funny. You're probably the only other person that knows about this house, and I'm not, I'm not surprised that you know about it.
- [22:26]
Katie Claggett
Yeah, I'm a little obsessive when it comes to the real estate market. Me too.
- [22:29]
Abby Newsham
Me too. So that house is very close to, to me and I, I see it all the time. And I'm so excited that somebody was able to buy a $200,000 house, you know, on a block with 400, $600,000, very stately, beautiful homes. It's a nice little cottage now that somebody can live in, and it does seem to be accessible. And I, I was thinking this could be a real model for, for seniors who maybe just want a little bit of space and they don't, they don't need a lot of room. They just need something accessible and maybe they want to live in a walkable kind of neighborhood when it comes to more suburban contexts. I do wonder, though, if that is going to be the direction, or if the direction more so will be to build some kind of type of housing that actually entices seniors to cash out their equity move, but with high construction costs. I think that that's a little bit of a niche market perhaps.
- [23:36]
Katie Claggett
Yeah, yeah, I think, I think you might be right. But this is where it's like, well, if we just started building starter homes again. Right. I know that's like a huge strong towns principle. The starter homes could be lovely housing for seniors. You know, I don't know because we don't, I don't see that in Kansas City. I don't see that being built. So it feels a little unproven that that is the kind, you know, property that seniors might trade in their bigger houses for. But somebody's gonna want those. Like somebody wanted that, you know, 600 square foot ADU over the garage that we were just talking about. So I don't know. And that's something that I want to figure out if, if it's feasible to, to try and build those. My neighborhood has a lot of vacant land. They're all really tiny lots and they just seem perfect for just like little 900 square foot starter homes, you know, or ending homes. That's kind of a little dark. It's a little dark.
- [24:32]
Abby Newsham
But it's your graduation home.
- [24:36]
Katie Claggett
Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I don't, I don't know if, if it's financially feasible in any way.
- [24:43]
Abby Newsham
We'll have to talk more about that because I've, I've kind of wondered that as well. And if there, if it's feasible to do like cottage court arrangements. But, but using cottages and starter homes as the housing type within a cottage court, you would think that that would be buildable. But I am curious about it. I don't know the answer either, but it seems like that would be something that's perfect for seniors because there is that communal orientation that that type of housing would be oriented in a neighborhood around open space, common areas. And that could be a desirable option.
- [25:28]
Katie Claggett
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I want to live there. You know, this is this week as I've been thinking about this in this article, I've been thinking about, okay, what, as I age, what is the environment that I want to live in when I'm a senior? And it's, I want to live in a small house on one plane. Single plane living is really appealing to me always with a tiny little yard, close to neighbors, walkable, with good transportation, you know, and it's like that's what I'm going to want when I'm, when I'm older. It's also what I want right now. Like it's, you know, exactly.
- [26:05]
Abby Newsham
I mean, that's my house. My house, I think is 900, maybe a thousand square feet. It is one story. It's a little cottage in a walkable area. It's funny because I have called this my, my old lady house just because it's me here alone with, and my dog and cat are old. And so I'm just like, it's just, you know, us old ladies here, I love that. But, but I, when I think about my house, it's really just a box. It's very simple. It's not a complex structure. And so that's why, you know, it's been on my mind a lot. Like, why can't we just build this, this type of house all over, all over the place? It would not just serve seniors, but I think a lot of different needs. But of course, the construction costs issue is a big part of this equation because, you know, if, if seniors want to downsize, maybe they have a 3,000, 4,000 square foot house, they have equity in it, they'd like to downsize. All of the new, newly constructed options are very expensive. So where is that incentive for them to actually cash out and move? You know, they may be perfectly okay with cashing out and then putting, putting it all into another house and having maybe a small mortgage on it, but, but maybe not. I mean, that may not be enough of an incentive unless they truly have to move.
- [27:36]
Katie Claggett
Yeah, yeah. It was interesting in the article, another real estate broker that they interviewed said, you know, I, my wife and I, we sold our house, we took the proceeds, we invested it, and then we rented an apartment. And the return on our investment is enough to pay the rent on our apartment each month and then we're able to live just really freely. You know, I think part of this too is like, it's hard to go from being in your own house to renting an apartment. You know, even that's, even though that's a viable option, it feels like a real downgrade in so many ways. And, you know, seniors might end up having to do that eventually out of necessity. Right. But it's certainly not, I don't think the choice that, that most seniors are going to make kind of naturally. And then, you know, condos are also a really good option too. But I was reading about, in Colorado there's some really weird like, liability laws or I guess, lack thereof that have really limited condo Development. So this is like a really good housing type for seniors who don't want a garden or a yard, you know, no stairs, but they're not getting built because developers can't get the insurance that they need to build them because of these, the lack of liability laws. So it's just really interesting. Yeah, yeah, condos have been a tough.
- [29:00]
Abby Newsham
That's a tricky housing type, right?
- [29:04]
Katie Claggett
Yeah, yeah. But what a great way to get a high density of single, you know, single story properties, parcel, you know, better than like a, like a three story kind of townhome that doesn't really go well with aging in place. But it's such a good product type. If we didn't have all these insurance issues, you know.
- [29:26]
Abby Newsham
Yeah, absolutely. There's just so many issues with, you know, deferred maintenance that come along with condos. But there are some condos that are really well run. And so there, there's a lot of new nuance there. But yeah, it is essentially a bunch of one story units that that seniors could live in and benefit from. And you know, I think there's a couple buildings in Kansas City where that's just the case. It's a condo model and there's quite a few seniors I think around the plaza, the country club plaza area. So I think that we have a little bit of that. But it would be interesting to see kind of new models. It makes me think about there is a kind of a new co op housing model that I've heard about that it kind of addresses this reality that even if we build new senior friendly homes that they're going to be pretty expensive, maybe more expensive than existing structures. And while they may be downsizing, they're kind of upscaling financially. And so, you know, the fact is that some seniors really have a lot of equity in their home and they have also retirement investments potentially as well. So they may be less concerned about owning a home to build equity, but they still want some kind of ownership model. So so in this example that I've seen, they actually have this. It kind of creates an opportunity where the seniors can sell their home and then they put a portion of their equity into kind of a co op housing model, kind of like a land trust. And then they can put the rest of it in some other investment if they'd like or that, you know, allows them to be more liquid. But in the co op model they would basically put a portion of their equity into that and they would own it, kind of like a land trust. And then they would be guaranteed a percentage return whenever they do happen to sell. But they kind of pay just like a monthly fee that covers kind of like a rent, but it also covers maintenance and upkeep and all. You know, it's maintenance free housing and it's really intended for seniors. And so the, the model basically is this quasi ownership model that it. Without necessitating seniors to actually buy a new and expensive home like outright.
- [32:04]
Katie Claggett
Yeah, that's so interesting. I wonder how they're able to guarantee a rate of return. I mean, that has to assume that the market is only going to continue to improve.
- [32:13]
Abby Newsham
I'll send you the example that I found because it's, it's in our metropolitan area and it's really, really interesting. And I also have so many questions about how it works. Yeah, but, but it sounds really interesting because it kind of occurred to me when, when learning about it that, you know, seniors may, they may not be wanting to buy something just to like create a high return on investment. Like they've done that with their house, but they don't necessarily all want to rent. So it creates that middle ground potentially. So I think that's kind of interesting.
- [32:49]
Katie Claggett
Yeah, no, that really is interesting. Yeah, please send that to me. Well, and it's, I mean, all of this conversation has been kind of focused on, you know, seniors that have, that have equity in their homes. Right. And seniors that have this kind of financial opportunity. Unfortunately, there are so many seniors that don't have that, you know, and the only option that a lot of them have is to get into a nursing home that accepts Medicare, Medicaid. And I was kind of reading about that. And it's so interesting because in order to qualify for that, you have to expend all of your resources, including any equity that you might have in a home. So you essentially have to have a net worth of zero really to be able to qualify for those. And the costs to the states are an average at this point of $100,000 a person a year. So in terms of thinking about folks that can't afford aging in place, can't afford retirement communities, I mean, that's a cost that is going to ultimately fall on the states and that cost is only going to go up. And from what I can tell, we are not prepared for, for that, for that cost. So it's kind of scary in that regard. And you know, I don't know what the solution to that is either.
- [34:13]
Abby Newsham
Right, yeah.
- [34:15]
Katie Claggett
Political or cultural or, you know, I don't know. But that's kind of the other end of the spectrum. That's, that's even scarier.
- [34:23]
Abby Newsham
And yeah, yeah, that's where housing interlap or it overlaps with the medical system.
- [34:34]
Katie Claggett
And the insurance system.
- [34:35]
Abby Newsham
And that's, that's way over my head to be honest with you. But it, I mean it's, it's concerning, but I have a lot of curiosity about how that works and it's alarming to hear that that's how much some of these facilities cost to live in for a year.
- [34:55]
Katie Claggett
Yeah, it's a, it's a huge, it's a huge number. It's a huge number. Kind of wild. But another interesting kind of option that they mentioned in the article was the kind of Monty Anderson, like what do you call it? The apartment house. What's his model?
- [35:14]
Abby Newsham
Yeah, yeah, the apartment house. He calls it Golden Girls House.
- [35:19]
Katie Claggett
There is an article in this series that was talking about, they reference Golden Girl and how, you know, filling up excess bedrooms is an option for people that have extra room. But, and there are organizations that are helping to place roommates in seniors homes. There's one in Denver that is doing this. The problem is that it takes on average for this organization, it takes them 30 hours to find suitable roommates to place in homes at a cost of $6,000. So this is like, you know, they want to make sure it's a good fit. They want to make sure, you know, they're going to get along, that kind of thing. But it's like not scalable at this point, which is really.
- [36:07]
Abby Newsham
Yeah, I guess it's a point of reference for us all now to make sure you maintain friends throughout your life because they might be your roommates one day.
- [36:18]
Katie Claggett
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
- [36:21]
Abby Newsham
Yeah, that's, that's really interesting. Yeah, Monty's, Monty's model is very fascinating to me because you know, one time he was telling me statistics about the, the percent of the population who will be widowed at, at some point. And so there's a lot of like single seniors that are needing a place to live. And I think that's, that's a real niche, niche market and having these, these arrangements, arrangements where you can take maybe these one story ranch houses and make them co op housing. That's, that's an opportunity, right? I mean it's, it's a real opportunity. I also think, I sometimes think they daydream just about like my, I think about my dad's house as a point of reference for this kind of thing a lot. And I wonder if there's instances where seniors might choose to age in place and add a bedroom on the first floor of their house, and then maybe their kids and their family moves in and then they live in the house. Of course, you'd have to be okay with living with an in law, but.
- [37:36]
Katie Claggett
That'S something that I think some families will do.
- [37:39]
Abby Newsham
I think ultimately this all comes down to the fact that people are going to very incrementally respond to these issues in their own way. Like, there's so many different outcomes, and I think that that's what we'll see is a lot of different outcomes here.
- [37:59]
Katie Claggett
Yeah, yeah, I, I, I, I tend to agree, although it scares me because it feels like, like the housing kind of shortage in general. This is something that we, we need kind of immediately, like more solutions for. But it's just, how do you, how do you get to that point? So the only way that it can kind of happen is, is incrementally and in response to, to a problem, you know?
- [38:26]
Abby Newsham
Yeah, well, that's, that's why I think housing adaptability is one of the most important things here. Because while people, people will come up with models that are unique, that can respond to this through new construction, that certainly will happen. I'm skeptical about the models scaling quickly, quickly enough to really respond to this in a meaningful kind of way. And people are just going to respond incrementally. And the extent to which we can allow housing to be adaptable is going to, I think, make or break some people.
- [39:07]
Katie Claggett
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I just want to say real quick, AARP is freaking awesome.
- [39:17]
Abby Newsham
Yeah, they are so awesome.
- [39:20]
Katie Claggett
I love AARP and all of the housing advocacy they do for Missing Mental Adus. It's just, they're so awesome. They, you can get a bunch of, like, printed kind of books from their website. And I got, like, how to build parks for people of all ages and how to build community gardens for people of all ages. And it's just, they're just so awesome. Shout out to AARP.
- [39:45]
Abby Newsham
Yeah, shout out. I think that when you're like, 32, you qualify for their benefits. Yeah. You don't have to be that old, just FYI. Yeah, I think it's like in your 30s, you, you become, you know, senior enough for AARP, so.
- [40:03]
Katie Claggett
Wow. Okay. Good to know. Getting a membership stat.
- [40:07]
Abby Newsham
Absolutely, Absolutely. I should look at the age. The age, because I might be old enough.
- [40:13]
Katie Claggett
Yeah, that's a good birthday present for somebody just turning 32. Oh, yeah. You know.
- [40:20]
Abby Newsham
Yeah, I bet they'll love that. I wouldn't do that because then you won't have friends to live with. When you're older.
- [40:27]
Katie Claggett
Got to think in the long term here.
- [40:29]
Abby Newsham
Yeah, you gotta play the long game later. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
- [40:35]
Katie Claggett
I love that.
- [40:36]
Abby Newsham
Okay, well, unless you have any other thoughts, I think we can probably leave it there.
- [40:41]
Katie Claggett
That's great. Yeah.
- [40:43]
Abby Newsham
I appreciate you joining me today. Before we get done, do you want to do the down zone?
- [40:48]
Katie Claggett
Oh, yeah.
- [40:49]
Abby Newsham
Okay. I wasn't sure if you had one, so I'm glad you do.
- [40:53]
Katie Claggett
Yes, I do. You want me to go?
- [40:55]
Abby Newsham
Yeah, yeah, please.
- [40:57]
Katie Claggett
Okay. So my fiance and I are planning our wedding in 90 days. We're doing the whole thing, start to finish. 90 days. We just started, I don't know, like three weeks ago and we're getting married in October. So it's like a. A way to like, you know, keep it as stress free as possible just by like limited. Limiting the amount of time that we can spend on the planning. Yeah, it's going really well so far. Honestly.
- [41:25]
Abby Newsham
That's great. Do you plan to have a big wedding or small wedding?
- [41:30]
Katie Claggett
I think It'll be like 75 people. So kind of as small as. As we could. We could muster. But it'll be here in Kansas City. There's a place called the Southmoreland on the plaza. It's a beautiful kind of old inn, you know. Yeah. We're renting out the whole inn and we're all going to be staying there with our nuclear family and everything will just happen there and it'll be very cozy and homey and simple and so sweet. So.
- [41:53]
Abby Newsham
Yeah.
- [41:53]
Katie Claggett
That's lovely.
- [41:54]
Abby Newsham
Congratulations. Very exciting.
- [41:57]
Katie Claggett
Thank you.
- [41:57]
Abby Newsham
I've been. My sister's getting married in October and it's a larger wedding and I've been kind of involved in that and just seeing, you know, just seeing, Seeing everything that's involved with. With a bigger wedding, it's. It'll be really fun, but it can be stressful to plan for. Sure.
- [42:17]
Katie Claggett
Yeah. Our whole goal was like, how do we make this something that we're gonna actually just like love being at, you know? So that's kind of the North Star. We'll see how well we succeed at it when all is said and done. But I'm.
- [42:31]
Abby Newsham
I'm trying to think of a good up sound. I feel like I've been. I've been up to a lot of. I've been up to a lot of different things. Right now I'm actually finishing up a painting that I did as a commission, which was kind of a fun process. Um, so that's probably what I'll be doing this weekend. But I've been working on that for the past couple of days. We're kind of in this like dog days of summer period where, you know, I've been working on my house and doing all this stuff and it's like the past few weeks I've just slowed down. It's like I've hit my. I've hit my seasonal wall in terms of the summer and the heat and I. The heat broke last week and I finally felt like, okay, it's going to be full soon. Of course it's fool's fall, but I was exciting. And so I've kind of started to get into some different habits and trying to change my routine. I've been like running in the morning and trying to get back into yoga and that sort of thing and just like being moving. So that's kind of where I'm at. I feel like I get this way every year in August where I'm just ready for the season to change and I have to like, you know, start jogging and moving around.
- [43:57]
Katie Claggett
Well, I saw that. That is like a term now. I don't know if it's like summer affective disorder. Yeah, but it's like, like the opposite of seasonal affective disorder, but in the summer.
- [44:09]
Abby Newsham
That's really interesting. I get so affected by the weather. I feel silly that I get so affected by the seasons. And I was just talking to someone yesterday about that. It's like I don't. I feel like I don't even experience like four seasons. It's like there's like 12 seasons in a year. Like there's so. I mean, I just. Yeah. I'm so affected by the nuances of the season and this Every August I feel like things get so stale because of the longevity of the heat and the humidity and it's. I'm just. I myself have to just start doing things until the weather changes.
- [44:55]
Katie Claggett
Yeah. Till it cools down a little bit. That's so smart. Well, it's just right around the corner, so hang in there.
- [45:00]
Abby Newsham
I know in January I'll be like, why was I hoping for it to be cold?
- [45:07]
Katie Claggett
Right. Right.
- [45:09]
Abby Newsham
Oh, alas, you know, I go round and round. I'll do this every year, forever.
- [45:16]
Katie Claggett
Okay.
- [45:17]
Abby Newsham
Well, Katie, thank you so much for joining me today and I hope that you'll come back. Maybe we can talk about allies and other fun topics in the future.
- [45:25]
Katie Claggett
I love that. That sounds great. Awesome. Thanks for having me.
- [45:28]
Abby Newsham
All right. Thanks, friend. And thanks everyone for listening to another episode of Upzone. Thanks. Thanks, Katie.
- [45:34]
Katie Claggett
Thanks. Bye. Let me show you what I'M about to do sa.