FY2024 Elder Justice Innovation Grants- Option 1

Background/JustificationWhen an older adult experiences maltreatment severe enough to risk their safety, there can be an immediate and emergent need to relocate. However, it is often challenging to find stable, safe, affordable, and effective emergency and transitional housing options that also address the accompanying needs for services to support the older adult so they can return to a more permanent housing solution within their community. Elder shelters have arisen as a supported housing option to address these gaps.Elder shelters provide, or outsource to community providers, supportive emergency and transitional housing options to older adults, including adults over age-60 with disabilities, who are experiencing abuse, neglect and/or exploitation and to assist with the range of service needs unique to older adults.(1) These services are designed to be comprehensive, personalized supports and resources to address the complex issues and challenges that often accompany the maltreatment experience and can interfere with the older adult obtaining long-term housing stability. These services include, but are not limited to, stable and permanent housing solutions, legal services, transportation, life skills, education, counseling, and services to address trauma. The experience of elder maltreatment and the tools required to help them recover from the trauma of their experience will differ across individuals depending on their background and cultural experiences.(2) These challenges are often further heightened amongst marginalized populations including Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, as well as economically poor, religious, non-U.S. citizen and LGBTQ+ populations.In many cases, existing domestic violence programs are not designed to address the complex housing and service needs of older adults. For example, while elder abuse can include intimate partner violence, it also includes family violence, as well as abuse, neglect and/or exploitation committed by a third party against the older adult, which is outside of the eligibility requirements of most domestic violence shelters. Moreover, the abuse of older individuals may present quite differently when compared to younger adults. Notably, abusers may reduce the frequency of physical violence and instead use control tactics through economic coercion, psychological abuse, and verbal threats.(3) A comparison of older and younger women victims found that older women were less likely to be working and more dependent on public income sources and they were more likely to be widowed.(4) This confluence of differences in the experience of abuse for older adults compared to younger adults also affect the types of supports and services that each group needs. Domestic violence shelters are often not equipped to provide the continuum of medical, housing, and social service care most needed by older adults. For example, research on emergency shelters and short-term supportive housing for older women found that services for older women are not as readily available and do not adequately accommodate their specific needs such as assistance with medications, support groups, and accessible environments.(5) Finally, domestic violence shelters typically can only shelter individuals between 30-60 days (6), while cases involving older adults are more complex and take longer to stabilize, often well beyond this time frame.There are several examples of domestic violence shelters that have specialized programs that focus on coordinating, either on site or with partner agencies, for elder shelter and supportive services. These examples, however, are mostly designed for older adults who can perform their activities of daily living independently. These domestic violence shelters generally are not set up to accommodate older individuals who have physical or cognitive needs. Additionally, these older adults may require a range of services not typically available in domestic violence shelters.One of the first elder shelters was integrated into a long-term care setting. This type of elder shelter can benefit from the trained staff, supportive services, relationships with external partners, and activities already in place in long-term care setting to meet the needs of older adults who have experienced abuse so severe that they have had to relocate out of their own homes.(7) While it has produced positive results for both the elder clients served and potential cost savings for stakeholders (8), currently this type of elder shelter is found in only 25 local communities in the U.S.In addition to a traditional, stand-alone shelter model or a model based out of a long-term care setting, other initiatives have emerged that locate elder shelters in various alternative settings to address both the emergency and transitional housing and service needs of older adults, including those with disabilities, who have experienced abuse, neglect and/or exploitation. For example, Adult Protective Services (APS) agencies have coordinated with housing providers in their communities to find safe emergency housing options and to provide a range of supportive services for older adults and adults with disabilities to escape unsafe living situations and to mitigate the abuse, neglect, and/or exploitation they are experiencing. Funding Opportunity DescriptionThe purpose of this funding opportunity is to support the proliferation of appropriate, acceptable, and effective emergency and transitional housing and supportive services for older adults, including those with disabilities, who are experiencing abuse, neglect and/or exploitation. In particular, ACL seeks applications that propose innovative and cost-effective approaches for providing emergency shelter and supportive services to older adults, including those with disabilities, and that propose practical strategies to implement those approaches. Proposed activities and efforts should reflect ACL’s commitment to a person-directed approach that is based on people’s strengths, assets, goals, culture, and expectations, along with their needs, and is based on the belief that all individuals have the right to exercise choice in, and control of, the services they receive.As a result of these grants, ACL expects the following outcomes:Improved knowledge of elder shelter models that are successful in:Providing emergency shelter /transitional housing to older adults, including those with disabilities, who have experienced abuse, neglect, and/or exploitation,Providing appropriate, acceptable, person-directed, and trauma-informed supportive services, andTransitioning older adults from emergency housing back to stable, safe, and permanent housing of their choice. 2. Identification of the mechanisms that contribute to effective, sustainable, and replicable elder shelter models. 3. Improved understanding of optimal methods for determining and measuring which services or combinations of services produce better outcomes for older adults, including those with disabilities, who have experienced abuse, neglect and/or exploitation. 4. Improved understanding of effective approaches to equity and accessibility to respond to the unique and diverse needs in underserved populations among older adults, including those with disabilities, who have experienced abuse, neglect and/or exploitation. 5. Improved capacity of local communities to meet the emergency shelter and supportive service needs older adults, including those with disabilities, who have experienced abuse, neglect, and/or exploitation.Strong applications will describe how they will determine and measure which services or combinations of services produce better outcomes for older adults, increase access to emergency shelter and supportive services, and address disparities among underserved and minority older adult populations. As part of their proposal, applications must include and/or address all the following:Within three (3) months of the grant award, grantees are expected to have completed a needs assessment to understand the gaps in emergency shelter and supportive service delivery for older adults, including those with disabilities, to be served by this project. The needs assessment must include the identification of disparities, and specialized cultural and linguistic needs.Proposed interventions to provide emergency shelter/transitional housing and related supportive services to older adults, including those with disabilities, who have experienced abuse, neglect, and exploitation are evidence-informed and/or evidence-based and incorporate a person-directed, trauma-informed approach (9). Identify and provide referral pathways to support services (e.g., healthcare services, counseling, legal services, and assistance with obtaining benefits, etc.) and propose approach/es to assist older adults to obtain more permanent, safe, and sustainable housing.Evaluation: Applications must include a description of the method/s that will be employed to successfully measure whether the project has achieved its proposed outcome(s), as well as the overall goal for this funding opportunity. If an evaluator will be engaged for the project, applicants should include this information in the project narrative, and in the budget if there is an associated cost or in-kind contribution.Please Note: Grantee evaluations of their projects facilitate the government in assessing whether programs are effective in producing positive change. Therefore, ACL is committed to providing technical assistance to grantees with the refinement and carrying out of a project’s evaluation plan. Technical assistance to the grantees will be provided primarily by ACL program staff via regular conference calls and email correspondence. Applicants should be prepared to include progress and information/data on the project’s outcomes and the evaluation in semi-annual reports and at other times as agreed upon by the grantee and ACL.5. Logic Model: A logic model is required for this opportunity and it should be included as an attachment to the application. A sample logic model is included as an attachment. Developing a logic model clarifies thinking and aids an organization in identifying outcomes and ways to document and measure progress toward defined objectives. During program design and planning, developing a logic model assists in formalizing program strategy and enhance the ability to explain and illustrate program concepts to key stakeholders. Applicants should use the logic model in organizing their proposal. As a condition of award, within the first six months of the project new grantees will be asked to make any necessary revisions to the logic model of their project. More information on logic models can be found within “ACL's Logic Model Guidance (10).” 6. Final Report: HHS grants policy requires all recipients of grant funding to submit a final project report. In addition to this report, grantees must submit to ACL a final report, document, or briefing paper that discusses the funded project, its results, and implications for replication.More information about the requirements for an application’s project narrative can be found in Section IV. Application and Submission Information.----------------------------------References:(1) Elder Abuse and Its Prevention: Workshop Summary. (2013). In Policy File. National Academy of Sciences.(2) Smucker, Sierra, Jirka Taylor, Ivy Todd, Emily Hoch, Monique Martineau, Deven Clark, Meagan Cahill, and Esther M. Friedman, Evaluability Assessment and Evaluation Options for an Elder Abuse Shelter Model. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2023. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA931-2.html (3) Crockett, C., Brandl, B., & Dabby, F. C. (2015). Survivors in the Margins: The Invisibility of Violence Against Older Women. Journal of elder abuse & neglect, 27(4-5), 291–302. https://doi-org.ezproxyhhs.nihlibrary.nih.gov/10.1080/08946566.2015.109… (4) Lundy, M., Grossman, S.F. Domestic Violence Service Users: A Comparison of Older and Younger Women Victims. J Fam Viol 24, 297–309 (2009). https://doi-org.ezproxyhhs.nihlibrary.nih.gov/10.1007/s10896-009-9230-y (5) Weeks, L. E., Stilwell, C., Gagnon, D., Dupuis-Blanchard, S., MacQuarrie, C., & Jackson, L. A. (2021). Initiatives to Support Older Women Who Experience Intimate Partner Violence. Violence against women, 27(15-16), 3011–3029. https://doi-org.ezproxyhhs.nihlibrary.nih.gov/10.1177/1077801220988355 Leblanc K., Weeks L. E. (2013). Are transition houses equipped to meet the needs of women in midlife and older? Journal of Family Violence, 28(6), 535–545. https://doi-org.ezproxyhhs.nihlibrary.nih.gov/10.1007/s10896-013-9525-x (6) Lyon, E., Lane, S., & Menard, A. (2008). A multi-state study of domestic violence shelter experiences, final report. https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/225025.pdf (7) Levin, M.K., Reingold, D., & Solomon, J. (2020). Elder Abuse Shelter Programs: From Model to Movement. Generations, 44(1) 74-80. https://www.springalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Fact-Sheet-El… (8) Smucker, S., Friedman, E., Cahill, M., Taylor, J., Daly, J., & Shih, R. (2021). An Initial Evaluation of the Weinberg Center for Elder Justice's Shelter Model for Elder Abuse and Mistreatment. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. Retrieved April 10, 2024 from https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA931-1.html (9) See https://acl.gov/programs/strengthening-aging-and-disability-networks/ad… (10) See https://acl.gov/sites/default/files/programs/2020-10/ACL%20Logic%20Mode…