New Developments Enhance User Experience for Aging Homeowners, Young Adults

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Over the past few months, we’ve met fantastic homeowners and young people and we have made some outstanding roommate matches. We’ve also been busy behind the scenes. By now, you’ve probably heard (or noticed) that we have made some exciting changes to our website. We can’t wait for you to explore!  

Where to Start?

While we recommend checking out our guides for seekers and homeowners and our FAQ section, the best way to get a feel for the Odd Couples Housing experience is to create your profile. With your profile, you’ll be able to answer questions about your living situation and your preferences for a roommate, and see who else is looking to get matched! Click here to get started.

Our Tech Journey

Since launching our first successful inter-generational roommate match in October 2018, Odd Couples Housing has been expanding in the St. Louis area. As we made more and more matches, we began to realize that our technological capabilities couldn’t keep up with the variety and quality of services we want to provide our users. Our team is great at a lot of things, but the knitty-gritty work of website development is a little out of our wheelhouse. Enter the Sigla team. 

Sigla is a St. Louis-based technology and venture building firm that specializes in working with innovative start-ups. They understand where we are and where we’re going. The Sigla team members have been fabulous partners and collaborators and have helped us transform our website and build the app! Like us, Sigla is dedicated to making sure that Odd Couples Housing users are at the forefront. 

As Steve Lilly, our CEO said, “Our goal with this new website is not just to improve the user experience for our participants, but also to provide a better understanding for our visitors of who we are and how we work. We want everyone to understand the importance of bringing generations together, whether they’re participating in our program or not.”

What else?

So, what is so great about this new site? Here are some of our favorite features:

  • A clear and comprehensive description of the matching process
  • Account capabilities that allow users to edit their profiles to facilitate matches
  • Easy to use call-to-action text buttons
  • This blog, where you can stay up to date on the latest Odd Couples Housing news or get relevant information on intergenerational living
  • Integrated social media buttons for connecting with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn
  • A mobile-first approach! Our new website was created with you in mind, and it’s designed to function seamlessly on both computers and mobile devices. This means you can access all of your Odd Couples Housing info, wherever you are! 

We are proud of our new site and we know that it will help us serve you better. We can’t wait to see what our second year of roommate matching has in store, for us and you! We hope you have as much fun exploring our new technology as we had creating it!

Aging in the 21st Century: Challenge and Opportunity

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Odd Couples Housing has the pleasure of working directly with Dr. Brian Carpenter, Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Dr. Carpenter, whose research and teaching focuses on aging, has a pulse on the challenges and opportunities of an aging society. He offers new perspectives and raises important questions about the changes we’ll face in our homes, communities, and the national front, as the U.S. population grows increasingly silver. At Odd Couples Housing, we’ve learned much from Dr. Carpenter  to support our mission to create a sustainable future through inter-generational home sharing.

Recently, Dr. Carpenter recorded a brief Ted Talk style lecture that highlights key themes for those considering inter-generational living. We recommend you watch it. The graphics are particularly powerful. Below, we’ve summarized the main take-away from Dr. Carpenter’s talk and we’ve posed a few questions to help you think about our aging society.

Did you know the world’s population is aging? 

The number of adults over the age of 65 has grown steadily over the last 100 years, and it is expected to continue growing for the foreseeable future. As the baby boomer generation ages, we will see more and more people living into their later life. In fact, we are already seeing the demographic shift towards an older population, with expectations that the U.S. population over the age of 65 will double by 2060. Interestingly, the age group that is growing the fastest in terms of its proportion of the total population are our centenarians, or those over 100. 

How will this affect your own life, now and in the future?

What are the implications of an aging society?

In coming years, our population will begin to resemble the demographics of Florida, where approximately 20% of the population is over 65 years old. This shift towards an older demographic will impact many areas of our daily lives. It will affect health care, transportation, technology, finances, travel, leisure, culture, and of course, housing.

Where do you see indications that the U.S. is growing older?

What about Aging in Place?

Many older adults prefer to stay in their homes and communities as they age. While aging in place has many advantages, there are also challenges on many fronts.  Physical changes can impact mobility, cognition and ability to live independently. Financial changes can threaten a person’s ability to maintain a home. Changes in social networks might mean that a person is more isolated in their home.

Have you thought about where you or your loved ones would like to age? How will you plan to meet their needs?  

Why is remaining socially connected so important?

Staying connected to a social network or support system is vitally important for people throughout their lives.  As we grow older, the psychological benefits of social engagement are particularly powerful. Research indicates that strong social networks are associated with lower risk of depression and dementia, and higher life satisfaction. 

What do you do to stay connected to your friends and social networks?

How does inter-generational connection help?

Socializing with people across age groups is a vibrant form of social connection. Through inter-generational interactions, both younger and older people can learn new skills and perspectives that help to break down age-related stereotypes. When we spend time with different generations, we are more likely to engage with people as individuals, rather than lumping them into a trope or stereotyped category. 

How can you connect more frequently with individuals from another generation? 

If this has piqued your interest, Dr. Carpenter makes many more fascinating points about what it means to live in an aging society in his full talk. Consider setting aside ten minutes of your day to watch! 

What are the challenges and the opportunities we will face in years ahead in response to the aging of our population?