AARP estimates that more than 26 percent of the nation’s seniors reside in naturally occurring retirement communities (NORC), such as an apartment building, housing development, or neighborhood built for families, but where a significant percentage of the residents are sixty years of age or older.
NORC programs, organized on‑site where seniors live, provide comprehensive supportive services to assist them to stay healthy and live independent lives.
Core services include: traditional social work and healthcare-related services, educational and recreational activities, and volunteer opportunities.
In 1992, the Stella and Charles Guttman Foundation, in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and other funders, provided support to the UJA-Federation of New York to replicate a new model for the delivery of services to New York City’s seniors that would help them to age in place. The project was the NORC- Supportive Services Program retirement community (SSP).
Based on the success of the replication program, in 1994 UJA-Federation was able to secure the country’s first NORC legislation, providing funding to create a state-wide NORC-SSP.
Today, New York State funds 37 programs in New York City, upstate, and on Long Island. In 1999, New York City established its own program, which today provides support to 34 programs.
Other organizations that funded the replication of this program included The Atlantic Philanthropies, the New York Community Trust, JE &ZB Butler Foundation, and the United Housing Foundation.
In 1999, the United Hospital Fund of New York City established an Aging in Place Initiative, which has become a center of excellence, providing knowledge, support, and vision to New York’s NORC-SSP.
Today, more than 60,000 New York State seniors who live in moderate and low-income housing developments and neighborhoods where there is a substantial concentration of elderly are benefiting from an innovative, dynamic model for organizing services that is helping them to grow old in their own homes.