Aging in Place: The Family Guide to Staying Home
Aging in place means growing older in your own home, with the house made easier to live in and help arranged for the parts of the day that have become hard. Here’s what it involves and where to start.
Aging in place, the plan 75% of adults 50 and older name for their own homes in AARP's 2026 figures, means growing older in your own home, with the house made easier to live in and the right help arranged as needs change, and Endurance Home Care provides that help at home in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York.
What aging in place means
Small changes, made over time
Aging in place is growing older in your own home and your own town. It rarely happens in one big decision. It’s a grab bar this spring, a ride to the cardiologist in the fall, and a couple of mornings of help each week once those start to matter. The National Institute on Aging’s guide, Aging in Place: Growing Older at Home, describes it the same way: something to plan, and to adjust as needs change.
Who this guide is for
Anyone thinking about how a parent, a husband or wife, or they themselves can keep living at home comfortably. You don’t need the whole plan today. It helps to know what the pieces are and which one to start with.
of adults 50 and older want to remain in their current homes as they age, and 73% hope to stay in their communities.
AARP Home and Community Preferences Survey, 2024
What help at home looks like
A caregiver who comes for the hours you choose: breakfast made, the house kept up, a ride to the doctor, company through the afternoon, and a reminder when it’s time for the evening pills.
The family stays close
Staying home keeps your parent near the people and places they know. Your Care Manager keeps you posted, wherever you live.
You don’t do it alone
Family, neighbors and paid help can each take a part. The plan is simply who covers which hours, and what changes when needs do.
Where to start: the house, then the hours
of the roughly 115 million US housing units are aging-ready. US Census Bureau.
Aging-ready means step-free entry, a bedroom and a full bathroom on the main floor, and grab bars where they are needed. Connecticut housing stock is older than most, which is why the gap between the 75% who want to stay and the homes that are set up for it is the real work of aging in place. Most families discover the second half, who is in the house when the hard hours arrive, after a fall.
Making the house easier
Most homes weren’t built with later years in mind, so a few changes go a long way. The CDC suggests grab bars inside and outside the tub or shower and next to the toilet, railings on both sides of the stairs, and brighter lighting throughout the house. Those are a good place to begin.
Walk the house once with a home safety checklist for seniors, then look at fall prevention steps for older adults and bathroom safety for older adults. Larger projects, like a ramp or a first-floor bedroom, are covered in home modifications that make staying put workable.
Help for the harder hours
The other half is people. Think about which parts of the day have become difficult: getting going in the morning, cooking a proper meal, the shower, the evening, the night. Those are the hours where a caregiver makes the biggest difference.
Some families need a few hours a week. Others need someone overnight, or around the clock. The plan can start small and change as needs do.
What the cost depends on
The cost of help at home follows the schedule, the kind of help and where care takes place. A few mornings a week and care around the clock are very different plans, so we start by understanding which hours your family needs covered.
Families usually assume staying home is the expensive option. In Connecticut the numbers don’t settle that cleanly. Long Term Care Navigator put the 2026 Connecticut figures side by side, and the comparison depends almost entirely on how many hours you need covered.
- In-home care, 40 hours a week
- $6,864 per month
- Assisted living, median
- $9,118 per month
- Nursing home, semi-private room
- $15,208 per month
Long Term Care Navigator, 2026 Connecticut figures.
“We had planned on assisted living, but the most cost effective choice was to keep her at home.”
Published family review
Endurance is private pay, and we’ll explain what a plan would cost when we talk. If there’s a long-term care insurance policy, bring it along. We help families with the policy paperwork. One published review describes sitting down with Tom and Chris to go through a policy, and says doing so reduced the family’s stress a great deal. How families pay for care.
The help that makes staying home work
Help at home comes down to two choices: when the caregiver is there, and what they help with. Many families start with a few mornings a week and add more as needs change.
24/7 care and live-ins
A live-in caregiver who lives in the home with a proper night’s rest, or caregivers working awake shifts through the day and night.
Hourly care
Help for the hours that have become hard: mornings, evenings, or the afternoons nobody else can cover.
Transitional care
Help in the days after a hospital stay, while everyone settles back in at home.
Care in facilities
One-to-one help for someone who already lives in assisted living or another community.
What a caregiver helps with
- Memory support at home
- Personal care
- Homemaking
- Companion care
- Transportation
- Medication reminders
- Safety supervision
We provide personal care in Connecticut and New Jersey. In New York we provide companion care, by the hour, overnight, live-in or around the clock. Two kinds of help matter in almost every home. Read more about meal preparation help and medication reminder systems, because regular meals and pills taken on time hold the rest of the day together.
Endurance Homebound
A plan for the first 72 hours after a hospital discharge, when everyone is getting settled and the instructions are new. That’s the stretch where staying home most often stops working, so it gets its own program. Hospital to home care.
Some families also add optional 24/7 audio monitoring, which listens for events, not conversations, and alerts the team so a person can respond. Your family decides whether to use it. See technology that helps seniors stay home.
How getting started works
Every kind of help described here starts the same way: with a conversation, and then a visit at home from a registered nurse.
The first conversation
Call our care team or request a call. A person answers the Client Support Line. Tell us what has changed and what kind of help you have in mind. The first conversation is free.
A visit at home
A registered nurse comes to the house, gets to know your mother or father, and writes the care plan with your family.
The schedule
Together we settle the hours and the kind of help. The plan is reviewed as needs change.
The caregiver
We choose a caregiver with your parent in mind and introduce them before the first visit. If it isn’t working, we find someone else.
Endurance Home Care helps with daily life at home: company, meals, the house, errands, appointments and, where it's needed, hands-on personal care. For skilled nursing, home health aides or physical therapy in Connecticut, our separate company, Endurance Home Health, can help. Connecticut License HCA.0002450 · New Jersey License HP0435100 · Connecticut DPH License 9915786 (Endurance Home Health).
Paid help is one part of staying home. Neighbors, friends, faith communities and village organizations are another, and they’re worth finding early.
Ask what’s available in your town. We’re glad to plan around the help your family and community already give.
Why it helps to talk early
Connecticut is getting older faster than it’s getting bigger. The population aged 65 and over is projected to grow 57% between 2010 and 2040, while the working-age population grows by less than 2%. That means more households that need help at home, and fewer people available to give it, so availability is the scarce resource here.
When families talk about help before they urgently need it, there’s time to think about the schedule, meet the caregiver and settle into a routine. If you’re already in the middle of something, that’s all right too. Tell us what’s happening and we’ll talk through the next steps.
Many families begin with companion care at home, a few hours of company and help around the house, and add more as needs change.
Questions families ask
What does aging in place mean in practice?
Aging in place means growing older in your own home and community rather than moving. The National Institute on Aging's guide, Aging in Place: Growing Older at Home, treats it as something to plan: matching daily needs with changes to the house, help from services and family, and adjusting as those needs change. Most families start with a few small changes and add help where the day has become harder.
How does the cost of aging in place compare with assisted living?
It depends on the help needed. In Connecticut, 40 hours a week of in-home care runs roughly $6,864 per month in Long Term Care Navigator's 2026 tables, against a $9,118 median for assisted living and $15,208 for a semi-private nursing room. Assisted living usually charges a monthly fee for the apartment, meals and whatever services that community includes. Care at home is arranged by the schedule, so the cost follows the hours, the kind of help and where care takes place. Tell us what the days and nights are like, and we'll explain what a home care plan would cost so you can compare.
Where should a family start with aging in place?
In AARP's 2024 Home and Community Preferences Survey, 75% of adults 50 and older said they want to remain in their current homes as they age, and 73% hope to stay in their communities. Yet only about 10% of US housing units are aging-ready, per the Census Bureau, so most homes need changes first. Start with the house and the hardest hours. Walk through the home with a safety checklist, looking first at the bathroom, the stairs and the lighting. Then think about the parts of the day that have become difficult, such as mornings, meals or nights. Those two lists show which changes to make first and what kind of help would make the biggest difference.
What services help someone age in place?
Help at home covers most day-to-day needs: company, meals and housekeeping, rides and errands, medication reminders and, where it's needed, hands-on personal care. It can be arranged by the hour, overnight, live-in or around the clock. Endurance Home Care also provides one-to-one help inside assisted living, and Endurance Homebound, a plan for the first 72 hours after a hospital discharge.
What are the signs a parent needs more help at home?
Families usually notice practical things: missed medications, a fall or a near fall, weight loss, an empty fridge, mail piling up, a house that isn't kept up the way it was. None of these means staying home is over. They're a sign that some help would make the days easier. A registered nurse's visit at home is a good way to see what would make the difference.
Let’s talk about what would help at home
Tell us what has become harder and what matters most to the person you’re caring for. Home care across Connecticut and New Jersey, and companion care in New York, from an agency registered with the state as HCA.0002450. The first conversation is free, and nothing starts until you say so.