Contrasting Views on “Peace of Mind” in Community Care Settings

Frequent reader Karen Miller from Florida made a timely catch by sending me two articles that both mention the “peace of mind” that can accompany living in purpose-planned retirement communities, including CCRCs or LPCs.  Thanks, Karen!  

In last Sunday’s edition of the New York Times, reporter Peter Finch offered “How to Talk About Moving to a Retirement Home: It’s a Journey.” He includes admissions by once highly reluctant residents, including one who finally gave in to his wife’s desire for a new setting:  

For the once-skeptical Mr. Strumsky, it took only days for him to start feeling certain that he and his wife, who is 72, had made the right decision. About a week after moving in at Charlestown [a retirement community outside of Baltimore], he went out to walk the dog at night and ran into a pair of women he didn’t know who were chatting amiably in the parking lot. About 25 minutes later, he returned home and saw the same women, still talking.

 

“They were so unconcerned about their personal safety, they were oblivious to anything going on around them,” Mr. Strumsky said. “And it just hit me: I really wished my mother or my sister or my aunt could have had this experience, to feel that safe and secure. At that point, it was like a light bulb going on. It was an instant turnaround for me.”

By contrast, Patricia Hunt, a columnist for the News Leader (part of the USA Today Network), writes about “friends whining about the rules of their . . . subdivision,” noting that the security that some people seek can come with a regulatory price tag, even if the regulator isn’t the government.  She writes in part:

In retirement many people with the means to do so choose a “continuing care retirement community.” There is a big price range, but basically you pay an entrance fee, and most require that you be well enough to live independently to be admitted. They provide food service, activities, and stepped up sections for “assisted living” and for the most debilitated, “skilled nursing care.” This is the most expensive option for one’s last years.

 

But the rules for the residents of CCRCs are set entirely by people who do not live in them. And flexibility is the most restricted of all options. If you grandson who ran away to join the circus can be talked into living with you for a few months until he can sort things out with his parents, you cannot let him do that. If you decline in health and your granddaughter is willing to come live with you so you don’t to go to assisted living or skilled nursing care, you can’t do that either. You can hire people to come in night and day, but your family member cannot simply move in. She must have another permanent address. At least this is how most of them work.

 

If you[r] adult child gets sick or loses a job and needs to stay with you, it is not allowed. And you may not have the money to help him or her out if you have spent it all on the entrance fee and monthly fees.

Hunt concludes by questioning whether people “really” do hate regulation, noting “there is plenty of evidence of that some of them are not only willing to live with more regulations than many other people, they are willing to pay a lot of money to do so.” 

For more from Hunt, read the full column “We Hate Regulation, But We Willingly  Trade Away Our Basic Freedoms for Comfort, Security.”