Linda Couch is vice president of housing policy at LeadingAge, an organization that represents more than 5,000 nonprofit aging services providers and other mission-driven groups serving older adults.
She works closely with top leaders at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and other federal agencies and examines federally assisted elderly housing policies.
Earlier in her career, Couch served as senior vice president of policy at the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC).
How did you get started in housing policy?
In grad school, I knew I wanted to work on anti-poverty programs. I was in the stacks of the library reading about the need for affordable housing, and all the data I could find was from a woman named Cushing N. Dolbeare. I decided right then that I wanted to work on affordable housing policy and that I wanted to work for NLIHC, which Dolbeare founded. Growing up, I moved eight times before I was 13 and not because we were looking for bigger dream homes. We always had to move. We rented, we owned, we stayed with relatives, but we just kept moving until I got to the middle of seventh grade. Homes are our foundation, and when they crush us with their cost or make us sick because of their quality, public policy is failing people. It took me three years after I got my master’s to get a job at NLIHC. Almost 28 years later, I still love working in this field.
What are you working on at LeadingAge this year?
We’ve been meeting with a lot of Hill offices to make sure elected officials understand affordable senior housing. That is, what’s available and offered in their states and districts, what the needs are for affordable senior housing, and who is served, not to mention what’s at stake when we as a nation don’t meet those needs. We shouldn’t be surprised that some Hill staff have a hard time understanding that the average income of a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly household is just over $15,000 a year. That should be unconscionable for every one of us. The good news in what we do is that solutions exist; what’s needed is support. At a 30,000-foot level, our goals are very simple: to preserve existing affordable senior housing, to expand the supply, and to do much more to connect affordable senior housing to the services and supports older adults need to age in a community with choice and dignity.
We’ve also leveraged longstanding relationships with both HUD and the Department of Health and Human Services to keep older adult residents healthy by delivering free COVID test kits to provider communities. Even though the pandemic is ending, older adults remain at risk.
What’s a policy change you would like to see get made this year?
When I’m dreaming: Housing assistance becomes an entitlement.
When I’m semi-conscious: Along with its long-term deep operating subsidy, the revived Section 202 program provides all the capital funds needed instead of its current state of forcing developers into a mixed-finance rabbit hole.
When I’m reading the news: No cuts, no work requirements, no government shutdown. These seem like a very low bar for a functioning system of government, but how well our government functions this year remains to be seen.
Share a statistic or fact about housing and older adults.
For older adults, homelessness is rising faster than the nation is aging.
What trends are you seeing in affordable senior housing?
We are seeing more and more partnerships. Private nonprofit providers of affordable senior housing communities have never been loners, but COVID really brought home the power of strong partnerships. Partnerships with Federally Qualified Health Centers, with area agencies on aging, with continuums of care, with public housing authorities, with state departments of health and mental health offices, with universities, etc. Our members are interested in providing what I’d call robust affordable independent living and partnerships key to achieving this.
What’s an issue that developers and operators of affordable senior housing should watch this year?
Funding threats on the Hill shouldn’t distract affordable senior housing providers from watching the rollout of Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) funds. HUD alone will be distributing $1 billion for a new Green and Resilient Retrofit Program (GRRP) just for multifamily housing, and the broadband funds at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and states from the IIJA should also be a target of affordable housing communities’ attention. The HUD senior housing portfolio is almost universally in need of investment, and the GRRP funds could bring not just more energy-efficient, cleaner, more resilient housing but also help preserve this housing into the future. On broadband, most HUD multifamily does not have desperately needed whole-building internet. Affordable internet access is a health issue, a social isolation issue, and overall, an equity issue. We know HUD’s working with the FCC’s affordable connectivity program to bring residents of multifamily programs on equal footing with public housing residents, but it’s high time the FCC uses the Affordable Connectivity Program to get internet into entire HUD buildings at once and that states use their IIJA funds to fill in any gaps.
Besides the usual work items, what’s in your office?
I have four of my husband’s cherished aloe plants in my office. My aunt gave me a small aloe plant in 1996. I would’ve killed it long ago, but my husband has created an entire Eastern Seaboard of aloe plant descendants from that one plant.
Favorite spot in Washington, D.C., and why?
The dwarf conifer garden in the U.S. National Arboretum. Regardless of the season, the dwarf conifer garden is a magical place. There are lots of nooks and crannies and paths to meander, the trees are gorgeous, and you might get lucky and see some ducks in the garden’s tiny pond. I’ll go there any day, but getting to go when there is snow is extra special. Besides the natural beauty is knowing that the garden is mostly a gift from one man’s collection of something like 1,500 dwarf conifers that he’d collected over his lifetime.
What’s a personal goal you would like to achieve in the next five years?
I love all kinds of music. Bluegrass has always had a special place in my heart, and early in the pandemic I got a banjo. I tried to learn with online videos, but I gave up pretty quickly after admittedly not much effort or progress. I’d love to learn to play it just a little bit. Over the next five years, I’d also love to travel to new places like South America or Africa.
