Aging in Place 8/9 Year of the plague

Listening to public radio in bed last night I heard that phrase . Aging in Place. It captures a general progressive policy/mindset I've prattled on about in conversations. Now I have a label for an old-age policy which encourages and supports seniors to age in the house and/or neighborhood where they retired to. Where they probably have ties and relationships whose continuation is comforting. NYC is famous for the policy of low real estate tax fiscally balanced by a stout city income tax. High real estate tax forces many seniors to move out when they retire. When you retire your city income tax will probably lessen as savings and retirement benefits kick in and you, a retiree, won't have a high suburban real estate which supports schools. You won't have to migrate.

In their 90s, my parents stopped being snow birds between Naples Florida and Hyaniss on Cape Cod. Moving anually became too much. Their summer residence was in an upscale assisted care complex in Hyaniss. They had kitchens with good fire alarms. Separate bedrooms as my mother became less mobile. My farther was able to have a garden there and used a greenhouse attached to the residence to raise orchids. And those that could could shop in Hyaniss – very nice. And in Naples they had an apartment, a mid-way walk between the town dock out onto the Gulf and the yacht club.

Probably the most progressive state, Massachusetts, has a finely tuned visiting nurse managed hospice care service which allowed my parents in their 90s to move into a home in their neighborhood and have separate bedrooms in a large family home owned and inhabited by a nurse and her family. My mother was in a hospice stage of life and my father was able to go on his walks. Very nice Aging in Place in those last years.... My sister had her boyfriend with a cottage on the Cape. After mother died in bed, My father, not so mobile anymore, moved near us in Queens in a assisted care facility where I could park every morning on my way to work and subway into NYU and then visit him on my way home and pick up my car. Very convenient with even a glass of wine with Phil nightly. Aging in Place.