For decades, senior care has been discussed primarily as a question of medicine: how to manage chronic illness, prevent falls, provide assistance and contain costs. Those questions matter. But a growing body of research suggests that we have overlooked another essential component of healthy aging: the structure of everyday life.
Where older adults live, whom they encounter and whether they remain useful to others may influence well-being as profoundly as many formal services. The evidence increasingly points toward a simple conclusion: senior housing should not merely keep people safe. It should keep them connected, active and necessary.
This principle is at the heart of Under One Roof and The Marvin. By bringing affordable senior housing and an early childhood education center together in one community, The Marvin offers something that traditional senior housing often cannot: regular contact across generations and the opportunity for older adults to remain visibly connected to the life unfolding around them.
The statistics show why this matters.
Nearly one-quarter of older adults experience social isolation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Isolation is not simply an unpleasant emotion. It is associated with cardiovascular disease, stroke, dementia, depression, hospitalization and premature death. CDC
A 2024 scientific review estimated that loneliness and social isolation may increase mortality risk by approximately 26% to 50%. The same review cited an estimated $6.7 billion in additional annual Medicare spending associated with social isolation among older adults. Frontiers in Public Health
These findings change the way we should think about social and intergenerational programming. A shared meal, a conversation with a preschooler or a reason to leave one’s apartment is not ornamental to senior care. It is part of the health infrastructure.
Older adults are not necessarily less happy
One of the most persistent misconceptions about aging is that happiness declines steadily as people grow older. Research does not support such a simple trajectory.
An analysis of nationally representative data from approximately 1,600 adults age 60 and older found that people between 65 and 74 reported greater overall life satisfaction than those between 60 and 64. More importantly, physical limitations were more strongly related to daily well-being than chronological age itself. Being older was not the principal problem. Losing the ability to participate was. Population Reference Bureau
A separate study using daily diaries from approximately 4,600 older adults found that participants were happiest while socializing, volunteering, exercising and working. Television occupied an average of 3.6 hours of their day, but active and socially engaging experiences contributed much more consistently to positive emotional well-being.
This distinction matters. Happiness in later life appears to depend less on perpetual entertainment than on agency, mobility, social participation and purpose. An older adult does not necessarily need a busier calendar. He or she needs meaningful opportunities to contribute, choose and belong.
At The Marvin, this means thinking beyond activities that simply occupy time. The presence of a preschool creates opportunities for residents to read with children, attend performances, participate in celebrations, share traditions and become familiar, trusted adults in the lives of younger people. The value is not only in what residents are invited to do. It is in the message these encounters convey: you are still part of the larger human community, and your presence still matters.
Living alone is common, but it does not have to mean being isolated
Nearly three in ten Americans age 65 and older lived alone in 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. U.S. Census Bureau
Living alone does not automatically mean someone is lonely. A person can live independently and maintain a rich social life. Conversely, someone can live among many people and still experience profound loneliness. Social isolation describes the objective scarcity of relationships or interactions. Loneliness describes the subjective feeling that one’s relationships are insufficient.
That distinction is important for senior housing providers. Counting attendance is not enough. Twenty residents sitting silently in the same room may be less meaningful than five residents participating in a conversation in which each person is known and heard.
Quality, reciprocity and consistency matter. In a 2024 review of 13 U.S. intergenerational studies, conversation repeatedly emerged as the most enjoyed component of the programs, more than the particular activity around which the interaction was organized. The activity created the occasion. The relationship created the value. Frontiers in Public Health
This is especially relevant to Under One Roof. The promise of an intergenerational community is not fulfilled simply because older adults and children occupy the same building. The benefit comes from creating repeated, comfortable and meaningful opportunities for them to know one another.
Multigenerational living is no longer unusual
The American household is becoming more intergenerational. In 2021, approximately 59.7 million Americans, representing 18% of the population, lived in multigenerational households. That proportion had more than doubled from 7% in 1971. Pew Research Center
More recent analysis found that 22% of adults age 65 and older lived in a multigenerational family household in 2023, up from 17% in 1990. Among adults age 85 and older, the proportion reached 25%. Pew Research Center
The appeal is partly economic, but it is not only economic. Among adults living in multigenerational households, 58% described the arrangement as convenient all or most of the time and 54% described it as rewarding. At the same time, 23% said it was frequently stressful. Pew Research Center
That final statistic is an important corrective. Intergenerational living is not automatically beneficial. Crowding, lack of privacy, unequal caregiving expectations and family conflict can undermine its advantages. The evidence supports thoughtfully designed intergenerational environments, not the assumption that simply placing different generations under one roof will produce connection.
The Marvin offers a distinct version of intergenerational living. Seniors maintain private apartments and independence, while the Children’s Center brings younger generations into the shared life of the building. It combines proximity with privacy. That balance is important because successful intergenerational communities must create opportunities for connection without making participation compulsory or sacrificing residents’ autonomy.
Intergenerational programs are promising, but the evidence deserves honest language
Research on organized intergenerational programs generally points in a positive direction. Programs involving shared conversation, technology mentoring, service learning, creative activities and individual visits have reported improvements in mood, social connection and loneliness among older participants.
In one virtual intergenerational program included in the 2024 review, 86% of older participants reported a positive change in mood and 71% reported feeling more socially connected after weekly sessions.
Those numbers are encouraging, but they should not be presented as definitive proof that every intergenerational program produces the same results. Many studies in this field remain small, short-term or observational. Programs differ substantially, and long-term follow-up is limited.
The scientific conclusion is not that intergenerational programming has been conclusively proven to prevent dementia or extend life. It is that such programming is a credible, low-risk strategy for strengthening social connection, with promising evidence of benefits to mood, loneliness and engagement.
That is still a powerful finding, and it gives Under One Roof an opportunity to contribute to the evidence. The Marvin can evaluate its programs by measuring residents’ sense of belonging, frequency of meaningful interactions, self-reported loneliness and participation over time. The organization can also gather feedback from children, families and educators to understand whether intergenerational contact influences empathy, comfort with aging and attitudes toward older adults.
Under One Roof is not merely operating an unusual building. It has the potential to demonstrate how intergenerational design works in practice.
Care is increasingly being supplied by families
The need for better community-based models becomes even clearer when we examine the scale of unpaid caregiving.
In 2025, nearly 12 million family members and friends provided approximately 19.2 billion hours of unpaid care to people living with Alzheimer’s disease or another dementia. The estimated economic value of that care exceeded $446 billion. Alzheimer’s Association
Recent national research also found that 10% of all U.S. adults identify as caregivers for a parent age 65 or older, while another 3% care for an older spouse or partner. Among people who actually have a parent age 65 or older, nearly one-quarter, or 24%, identify as a caregiver. Pew Research Center
These figures demonstrate that senior care is not confined to nursing homes, hospitals or home-care agencies. It is embedded in ordinary households, frequently delivered by adult children who are also working, parenting and managing their own health.
Well-designed senior communities can therefore serve two populations at once: older adults who need connection and families who need reassurance, respite and support. Affordable senior housing also reduces one of the major pressures facing families by giving older adults a stable home within a supportive community.
For Under One Roof, the mission is therefore larger than housing. The organization helps preserve independence for residents while providing families with the confidence that their loved ones are living in a community where they are known, supported and connected to daily life.
Most older adults want independence, but independence requires infrastructure
In AARP’s 2024 national survey, 75% of adults age 50 and older said they wanted to remain in their current homes as they aged, and 73% wanted to remain in their existing communities. Yet 44% believed they might eventually have to move. AARP
“Aging in place” is often presented as an individual preference, but it is really a community capacity question. Remaining at home depends on affordable housing, accessible buildings, transportation, food security, health care, mobility supports and reliable human contact.
A home that someone cannot safely leave may preserve residence without preserving quality of life. Genuine independence means maintaining access to the larger world.
This is where The Marvin’s model is especially valuable. It provides affordable private apartments while surrounding residents with services, communal spaces, food support, activities and the daily presence of children, families, educators and community partners. Residents can remain independently housed without becoming socially removed from community life.
Under One Roof does not ask older adults to choose between privacy and connection. Its model is designed to provide both.
What the research suggests we should build
The scientific evidence does not prescribe a single perfect model, but it does suggest several practical principles for Under One Roof and other senior communities.
First, social connection should be treated as a measurable health outcome. Senior organizations can assess loneliness, perceived support, belonging and participation just as they monitor falls, housing stability or food insecurity.
Second, programs should emphasize recurring relationships rather than isolated events. A weekly interaction with the same child, student, volunteer or neighbor is more likely to produce familiarity and trust than a large annual celebration.
Third, older adults should be contributors, not merely recipients. Reading with children, mentoring students, tending gardens, sharing professional knowledge and helping plan community activities create purpose as well as contact.
Fourth, mobility and accessibility are central to happiness. Research suggests that functional limitations matter more to well-being than age alone. Accessible spaces, transportation and adaptive support allow older adults to continue doing what gives their lives meaning.
Finally, intergenerational contact should be designed around genuine reciprocity. Children benefit from attention, history, patience and mentorship. Older adults benefit from energy, novelty and a continuing place in the human future. Neither generation should be treated as a therapeutic instrument for the other.
The most compelling research finding may ultimately be the simplest: older adults report their greatest well-being while socializing, volunteering, exercising and working. These are not extraordinary clinical interventions. They are the ordinary activities of a life that still has movement, relationships and consequence.
That is the deeper purpose of Under One Roof. The Marvin does more than place senior housing and early childhood education in the same building. At its best, it creates a small community in which older adults remain connected to childhood, families remain connected to elders and generations that might otherwise live entirely separate lives are given a reason to know one another.
The future of senior care depends on remembering that longevity alone is not the goal. The goal is a longer life that remains connected to other lives. At Under One Roof, that connection is not an abstract principle. It is built into the home itself.