Compared to some of my peers, I do not see myself as overly attached to my home. The home where we currently live is the place I’ve lived for the longest period of my life. I grew up in a family home that was stable.We didn’t ever move during those years. Once I went to college, I moved at least once a year, never saying in the same dormitory or apartment for an entire year. Then we lived for seven years in a parsonage, ten in the first home we called our own and twenty in this house. I like this house very much, but I know that in a few years the time will come to sell it and make another move. Our current house was great for the years when we had teenagers at home and when my mother lived with us. It worked fairly well when, for a brief period our adult children lived with us one at at time. But it would be a challenge for someone using a wheelchair. You have to go up steps to get to the main level and once there, there is both an upstairs and a downstairs. Though our basement is considered daylight on the east end of the house, it is four steps below grade. And, quite frankly, it is too big for two people. It is probably already time for us to consider downsizing. Still, it is comfortable and affordable for us at this phase of our lives.

As people approach their aging years, there are many different approaches to housing. It is not uncommon for folks in our community to go through multiple moves in their aging years, similar to the way we went through many moves in our education years. They move from a family home to a townhouse, from a townhouse to an apartment, from an apartment to an assisted living facility, from there to a skilled care home. Some move back and forth between different facilities depending on their health. We have multiple institutions in our town who have all of those levels of living available and assume that people will make their moves within the same institution.

The problem with that option is that in study after study, the vast majority of people don’t want to live that way. In most polls, around 90% of US citizens, and similar numbers in Europe, Australia and Japan state that they would prefer to remain in their own homes through their aging years and have in-home care if and when it is needed. That requires careful planning. Most homes have significant challenges for aging people. Some can be adapted with widened doorways, ramps for wheelchair access, remodeled bathrooms and other changes. Those changes are, however, expensive. Then there is the problem of obtaining services. In the US, services are more available in urban areas than in rural locations and in home care typically costs more than $20 per hour and often is not available 24 hours per day at any cost. In addition to care costs, homeowners have ongoing expenses of taxes and maintenance. Most will need to hire lawn care and repair services as they age.

Then there is the issue of transportation. Many homes assume that the occupants have access to private cars. Once you stop driving it can be a challenge just to get groceries and make medical appointments.

In our country, we are far less likely to follow the pattern that has, throughout history, been the most common and still is prevalent in many other cultures around the world: parents move into the homes of children. We consider ourselves to be lucky that my mother lived in our home for the last couple of years of her life. We did end up hiring a bit of in-home care because we both work full time, but we were able to adapt our schedules and make modest changes in our house so that it worked well for us. However, like most of our peers, we aren’t planning to move into the home of one of our children when we are no longer able to care for our own home.

Although a continuous care retirement community isn’t appealing to me personally, I do suspect that we will make several moves during our aging years. I suppose we should start planning those moves, but I also know that for many of the people that I serve, flexibility is as critical as planning and flexibility is a condition that is a real challenge for us as we age. A set of plans that works well for a couple can change suddenly with an illness or a death. The circumstances of other family members can change. We know lots of stories of people moving to be near children during their retirement years only to have the children move due to a change in jobs or for other reasons.

I am not the best of financial planners and I know that my aging years will present some financial challenges. I believe, however, that as important as financial plans are social plans. People can get in trouble through a failure of community if they don’t have a network of family and friends. I’ve seen some devastating effects of isolation on aging persons. Rather than focus exclusively on financial capital, I’ve been intentional about investing in social capital. Being in the church is a real advantage in those terms. Not only do we have a strong and supportive community, we know that the church is a network of communities. Each time we have moved from one place to another, we have been received into a strong and supportive church community. I’m well aware that many people think of church in terms of belief and spiritual practice and those are important, but it also is important to be aware of the value of community. The failure of community can leave people in very lonely and difficult situations.

I haven’t got this aging business figured out. I’m sure I’ll be making plenty of “seat-of-the-pants” decisions in context as the years pass. But I do have the assurance that I won’t need to make all of my decisions alone. Having a community is a valuable asset.

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