What about moms and dads who really don’t want to move?
The problem of where to go and what to do about housing in the sometimes not-so-golden years has an assortment of solutions for those who prefer (and can afford) the retirement community or any of the multitude of assisted living communities around. But for those who are bound and determined to stay put in the old house or the long-familiar apartment? A collection of obstacles begins to accumulate.
Enter the village.
Swiftly catching on around the country, aging-in-place “villages” are designed to help members overcome those obstacles by providing a variety of programs and services – while the members stay put. The prototype was Boston’s Beacon Hill Village, founded in 2001, which offers “groceries to Tai Chi to cultural and social activities to home care.” Others have popped up in states ranging from Colorado to New York, Florida to Nebraska, Massachussetts to Hawaii.
San Francisco Village was the second, after Avenidas in Palo Alto, to get off the drawing boards and into action in California. Although each Village differs from others, SFV illustrates many of the attractions that are drawing in the stay-put crowd. The organization began with some local grants and individual donations, and is sustained now by annual membership fees.
Sarah Goldman agreed, after a good bit of arm-twisting, to be a poster girl for SFV in upcoming stories for the neighborhood’s New Fillmore newspaper. Sarah was among the first to join the organization, and in many ways typifies the village member-enthusiast: fit, active and fiercely independent at 80, she plans to stay that way as long as humanly possible. Her first move, as a Village member, was in support of someone older still and desperately in need of help: her landlady. Goldman could see that the landlady, who also lived alone, was becoming forgetful and increasingly unkempt – the distress signals that often propel seniors into care facilities. So she began by talking the landlady into joining also. This paved the way for calling in, with the landlady’s approval, a wide-ranging group of service providers: house cleaners, organizers, financial assistance people, personal care helpers. All had been vetted by SFV. Their help has now enabled both landlady and tenant to keep right on aging in place.
Goldman also quickly started a program patterned after one she had organized when working with an assisted living community. SFV’s play-reading group was an immediate hit among those seeking socialization and intellectual stimulation. Three necessities of life — social, physical and mental fitness — added to issues such as those dealt with by the landlady, add up to the heart of the Village. Members hope that by accessing things like this while staying on familiar turf their golden years may indeed stay shiny.
This one hopes that SFV membership will help keep the contributions of this space emanating from this laptop on this Sacramento Street kitchen counter for a very long time to come.
