LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Louisville group is working to make the city more accessible to people of all generations and recently announced its latest strategic plan.
Katherine and David Autin have called Louisville home for more than three decades. They had lived in New Orleans before moving to the Derby City in 1991.
“I'm from the D.C. area, Alexandria, Virginia," said Katherine Autin, Louisville resident. "We love it here."
Katherine, who is 69, takes care of David, 72, who has Parkinson's disease.
“I'm doing the laundry, I'm doing the cooking, I'm doing the arranging and, well, everything else," she said.
She said her husband’s condition makes it challenging for him to move, and David has fallen a handful of times recently. He has only gotten out of the house to see the doctor.
“If we had volunteers and groups that said, 'Hey, if you want to go to the park, there's a bunch of us going, we can help you with the walker or the wheelchair or whatever,' that would be amazing,” Katherine said.
She suggested that idea to Age-Friendly Louisville, a group that aims to make the city better suited for all generations. Its strategic plan focuses on housing, social inclusion and outdoor enhancements.
“A lot of language I’m talking about from cradle to cane ... the idea is that we want to support people as they age throughout their life and that we support one another and intergenerational kind of perspective,” said Pam Yankeelov of Age-Friendly Louisville.
One of the early goals in the outdoor enhancement domain is to perform walk audits of suburban and urban areas to identify places that are and are not accessible.
“The purpose of the walk audits is to really ensure that all civilians, regardless of their disabilities or abilities, have an opportunity for full inclusion in our community so that they can get out and do what everyone else does,” said David Allgood of Age-Friendly Louisville.
The audit looks at lane width, time allotted to walk across a road, sidewalk composition and more. Recommendations from the audit will be passed on to the appropriate city officials.
That’s just one of Age-Friendly’s many goals to make Louisville more accessible for all generations.
“I'm super excited about all the senior initiatives and the community programs that are offered in Louisville," Katherine said. "I think they are phenomenal."
Age-Friendly Louisville’s strategic plan lays out goals through 2027. In 2016, Louisville became the 120th member of the American Association of Retired Persons' network of age-friendly communities.