“The best thing? Well, there are only three rooms to look for my glasses in.” Nearing the end of her first year after a final move, my sister reports a whole bunch of pluses and only a couple of minuses in her housing choice.
Like millions of other older Americans, my sister Helen and her husband Clare faced the multitude of questions that come with aging in this country: where to live, how to stay active and independent, how to get necessary health care, how to finance it all. After a lifetime in academics and music, they had good friends at home and around the globe, but were beginning to feel isolated in their 4th floor Boston condominium because of limited mobility (Clare has Parkinson’s; they had long since sold the car…) and knew that changes had to be made.
First issue: Housing. Staying in their home was not a good option; though it had plenty of spare room, no family member was available to move in and help. They were far from needing (or being able to afford, for that matter) regular in-home help. Their children were scattered across four states, with families of their own.
The answer for Helen and Clare was Kendal at Ithaca, one of a growing number of retirement communities offering “lifetime” or “continuing community care” in almost every part of the U.S. and many other countries. They chose a two-bedroom, two-bath “cottage” within an easy walking distance of the main facility and its dining room (they have one meal a day there), fitness room, crafts room, library (a large and very well-stocked area where Clare spends most of his disposable time), swimming pool and meeting rooms (where Helen quickly found ways to be useful on multiple committees.) They made the move eight months ago (as reported on this page along with a running bunch of posts on senior housing choices then and since then); I visited again this weekend to see how things are working out. Pretty well. The winter wasn’t all that bad, though April in Ithaca seemed about as cold and ominous as June in San Francisco to this San Franciscan, and they have had no second thoughts.
The bad point: they miss their Boston friends. The good? Not having to worry about home care or upkeep, having a regular cleaning/household helper whom they greatly like, door-to-door transportation to cultural events at nearby Cornell University, Ithaca College and elsewhere, plenty of activities and new good friends, good food (“the desserts are desperately attractive,” Helen says) and health care (mostly right there on the premises.) On this last point, Clare lists one great attraction he sees: “They can’t throw me out.” The crowning bonus, for this fairly happily aging couple, is the proximity of their physician daughter and her husband, who relocated from the west coast to be near their parents, and who are in daily communication and assistance.
Kendal communities are not cheap. Nor are most of the others that offer independent living, assisted living and nursing care in assorted facilities, along the can’t-throw-you-out principle. Helen and Clare paid a hefty lump sum (being able to sell a home you’ve had for decades is the way most people swing this) and their monthly fee, which covers meals, transportation, doctors visits, drugs, etc, etc and etc, is also substantial. They are, though, a good choice for many. One college friend now in such a spot refers to her South Carolina retirement home as “our little corner of paradise;” another very close friend is delighted with her Virginia apartment in a community where her husband now lives in a “memory unit” a few steps away.
If you Google “retirement communities” or “continuing care communities” or similar phrases, literally hundreds of choices pop up. The managers of those facilities can spell out the costs and the benefits; for the pitfalls, it’s a good idea to talk with those who live there or whose loved ones are/have been there.
My demo couple in Ithaca are in the right spot.
