Portland, Oregon downtown area where seniors live in pricey or small subsidized apartments.[/caption]Carol Forsloff----A recent visit to the glittering condos of Portland in the up and coming areas of the Southwest regions of the metropolitan area provides a glimpse of social change that speaks of issues that affect us all, but most importantly those of a certain age who live on the edge as the old ways of nurturing communities fade in favor of impersonal and remote towers in the modern world.
Portland, Oregon is no different than many other cities, as the crime is most prevalent in the interior and spills into its nearby neighborhoods as well, even as the prices increase while incomes of seniors remain fixed or falling. But these neighborhoods are walkable in the sense that grocery stores and restaurants are available by foot and mass transit near the door. The price an elder has to pay, however, is either with price or crime or both, which forces older folks to live on the edge.
That edge is in the outlying areas, where the traffic flow does not affect daily life but impacts leisure activities and creates problems for those who walk slowly or need to find urgent care urgently. So those of a certain age, needing safety, security, walkability and low crime find it difficult to locate regions of the town that provide the basics during times of fading health. And the options are not as welcoming as one might hope, either in accessibility, price or location.
Many seniors elect to live in mobile homes because they are less expensive and often have inviting interiors in communities where other seniors live. But those mobile home parks or areas where people own their land are on the outside of towns that either have few amenities or are near the strip malls and highways that offer little by way of an easy and safe walk to a grocery or restaurant. Most municipalities shun the mobile homes, even though many are structurally sound and attractive, as they are viewed by neighborhoods as of lesser value and carrying the stigma of the “trailer trash” of years ago. Seniors in these areas are living on the edge as mobile home parks fees increase and land-use landlords see opportunities in the numbers of older people looking for a home. They are not the cozy mobile home parks that have become standard ways of living for many seniors in Florida.
The residences for seniors, the tall, imposing structures that look like large apartment buildings or hotels, are also often on the edge of town or some other remote area or across from large shopping malls, as they are in Southwest Portland – Hillsboro corridor. These are not the neighborhoods of yesterday with the grocery nearby and the welcome mat of friendliness that were part of the life of yore.
Retirement homes in the city might offer the open door and welcome, but the areas where they are located present issues of safety because of proximity to crime. So seniors cluster in their lounges where card games and Bible study are the predominant activities planned, with an occasional day trip by bus with other elders, and with extra cost.
The all-in-one places of extended life planning, from independent living to assisted living and memory care, frequently allow for little options by way of social life, beyond those predictable events of cards and church that are touted as filling recreational needs. The food is often starchy and tasteless, the help from folks who make little money and therefore have issues as well. And the costs from $1500 to $3000 monthly is beyond the Social Security benefits most seniors receive.
All of this comes as seniors live on the edge in other ways as well. That edge is in the total community response, which in a fast-moving world means often forgotten, unused talent or talent that is bought cheaply or offered for free. Seniors who use to be teachers end up volunteering as grandparents in the schools, and the local secretary of the bank becomes the clerk at a second hand store one day a week, just to have social contact and get out of the house to make friends. Volunteering is said to promote senior emotional and physical health, but it's also a way to get labor more cheaply than anywhere else. But even so these volunteers or cheap labor aren't the movers and shakers some of them once were, as the vision of youth remains the major cultural view.
There are ways to escape many of these concerns, but those ways often cost money and the complex planning that age and health-related issues can often make more difficult at a time when life is supposed to be simple. So the saving and the planning must be carefully done in the years before retirement, with enough flexibility and foresight to understand that what works today might not work as well tomorrow.
As baby boomers increase in numbers and demands continue to grow, the options for living increase in technology but diminish in interpersonal ways.
Old age, they say, isn't for sissies, and preparing for it requires more than just a savings account but an attitude change as well. And that attitude means a compromise in either security, safety, financial investments or social activities as the golden age of life is spent in finding which option must be given up to make it through those times.
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