FAQs
Connecting Seniors Living in Affordable Housing to Family, Friends and Vital Services
As more communities bring Lighthouse for Older Adults to their residents, we hope to see improved health, connectedness, safety and well-being for all older adults. This program is a rapidly deployable and scalable digital inclusion pilot program that provides broadband access and digital literacy training to residents in affordable housing communities.
Americans aged 65 and older are less likely to have access to broadband internet connections at home than other age groups. For those with low incomes, the digital divide is even more stark.
Broadband access may have been inconvenient and isolating before COVID-19, but during the pandemic it became a literal lifeline, as millions depended on this form of connection for everything from health care to social connections and diversions, to deliveries of food and medicine.
Working in partnership with Eskaton and Front Porch, senior living providers in Northern and Southern California, Lighthouse researchers conducted focus groups with residents and staff to identify barriers to technology use. High rates of social isolation, limited access to needed care (especially for chronic conditions such as high blood pressure and arthritis), limited literacy and education levels (in English as well as other languages), cognitive and vision/hearing challenges, and a lack of infrastructure and comfort with technology all surfaced during these discussions.
To address these barriers and test potential solutions, the team created a train-the-trainer and peer-to-peer buddy system. The training options incorporate focus group insights such as addressing the needs of bilingual learners with varying levels of comfort with technology.
An ongoing evaluation will help point to next steps, but some key sustainability challenges are already evident. Even though there is wide agreement that broadband access is a must-have utility and no longer optional, this does not solve the public policy challenges of who is responsible for funding and installing it in equitable ways.
California’s attention to broadband and telehealth issues may yield solutions relevant to other states. LeadingAge California remains an advocate and champion of expanding broadband access to all. Through the continued development of the Lighthouse Project and increased engagement, we hope to see more multilingual and culturally relevant technology-enabled interventions generated, while continuing to advance the efforts of peer-supported digital literacy.