Hello. This is █████████████████████ with aarp. AARP is holding a nationwide telephone discussion right now. Your community, your home. Trends and challenges shaping where we live. This free national teletown hall will explore the intersection of housing affordability, universal design, local innovation, and the economic realities of staying put. To join the conversation. You simply need to stay on the line. Our live tele town hall will be recorded. To reach a live operator at AARP during business hours, call ██████████████. To reach aarp by mail. Send correspondence to the program's department at ██████████████████████████████████████████████. Please stay on the line and you will be connected to this toll free live conversation. Please hold while we connect you to the AARP event. This aarp event is currently in progress. Please note that this call may be monitored, recorded or rebroadcast. If you would like to listen in Spanish, press ████ zero when you are connected to the live event. Adults. ███████████. ████ is AARP's Director of Livable Communities Leaving, initiatives that help cities, towns and rural areas become great places for all ages. He oversees AARP Community Challenge grants, technical assistance programs, and the AARP Network of AIDS Friendly States and Communities. ███████ and ████, welcome to our town hall. Hello. Thanks. Such a delight to be here. Let's go ahead and get started. ███████ we frequently hear the phrase aging in place. And as we begin our conversation today, I want to ask you to provide some clarity on what is meant when someone references aging in place. Could you define this concept for us and explain why the ability to age in place is such an important goal for older adults? Sure, ███████. Thanks for that. First, let's acknowledge that we're all aging in place. But some of us are aging, maybe more successfully than others. And as a goal. We know that there are many factors that play into our ability to age successfully. I think today's event is about looking at built environment issues. Home futures, home design, neighborhood and community characteristics. So that'll be our focus in that. But in terms of what aging in place is, what it means for me, there's a couple of examples. I'll show you here. And then we'll mention something else. I think maybe later on in the program. But one way to look at it is enhancing older adults ability to stay engaged with family and community life. For a lot of us, that's really the backbone of the events that we have in our life. And the pleasure that we get analyzed. Being able to maintain that for as long as possible. Is real important. And of course, as you'll find out, the issues we'll talk about will really help contribute to that. Another way to think about it is our ability to maintain our activities of meaning and purpose. Whatever those might be. Maybe it's hobbies that we do around the house. Maybe it's events we go into in the community. Maybe it's being able to socialize with friends and family. The aim to maintain those again for as long as possible really helps us to be the more successful aging process, I think. And the contrast is really for people who maybe do less about thinking about maintaining ourselves for successful aging. It has to do with living. What is our tendency to live smaller and more dangerous lives going forward, often years prematurely because perhaps, for example, our homes don't work well for us? We would otherwise be able to. So that's a starting kind of looking at what aging in place is and what it really means. thank