Shimberg Center launches Housing Florida's Older Adults: By the Numbers
This new website provides state and county data on demographics, financial status, health, and housing for the 3.3 million Florida residents age 65 and older. Explore the data.
Research Brief: More Floridians are renting their homes, but affordable units are scarce
An October 2017 research brief
on Florida's affordable rental housing needs shows that the state added 560,713 renters between 2005 and 2015.
These include new households formed, households moving to the state, and homeowners shifting to renting.
The state lost 130,267 owner households during the same period.
In 2015, 744,662 low-income renters paid more than 40 percent of their income for housing--a 35 percent from 2005.
The Center also released briefs on regional rental housing trends in
South Florida,
Northeast Florida,
the Orlando area,
and the Tampa Bay area.
Report: Homeless students in Florida trail their housed peers in attendance, academic, and disciplinary indicators
Over 72,000 children and youth in Florida were identified as homeless in the 2015-16 school year. These students are temporarily doubled up others or are staying in hotels and motels, shelters, transitional housing, and unsheltered locations. A new study by the Shimberg Center and Miami Homes for All explores the impacts of homelessness and housing instability on education by focusing on these students’ experiences. Learn more.
UF receives HUD grant to retrofit housing for people with disabilities
A team led by Shimberg Center professor Sherry Ahrentzen was recently awarded a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and
Urban Development to develop methods to retrofit small multifamily buildings to make them affordable, accessible and
aesthetically pleasing.
The study will use virtual reality technology to enable persons with disabilities to test designs before they are built.
For example, a person with arthritis can test modifications to make doors easier to open by wearing a haptic glove,
which allows users to touch and grip virtual objects.
The interdisciplinary research team includes Dr. Ahrentzen, Nicole Campbell, and Bill O’Dell from the Shimberg Center; Stephen Bender, School of Architecture; Ravi Srinivasan, Robert Ries, and Xiaojie Lu, Rinker School of Construction Management; Randy Cantrall, IFAS Department of Family, Youth and Community Services; Sherrilene Classen and Linda Struckmeyer, Department of Occupational Therapy; and Erin Cunningham, Department of Interior Design.
