Facing limited housing in SLO County, seniors must downsize or pay high prices
Alice Robinson considers herself lucky to have the home she does.
In 2016, Robinson moved to San Luis Obispo from the Bay Area after the death of her mother, whom Robinson cared for during the last years of her life.
Selling her mother’s home there gave her the ability to buy her own home here outright for $450,000, spending another $50,000 on repairs and improvements, all without a mortgage.
But recent developments on her block have made Robinson, 74, reconsider her long-term outlook on her housing situation.
Several of Robinson’s older neighbors have died in recent months after what Robinson said is an unwillingness to downsize to a home that better accommodates their needs as seniors.
It’s an increasingly difficult problem in an area like San Luis Obispo County with a substantial population of aging retirees and high housing costs.
Should someone in their 80s or 90s try to stay in their homes? Is it safe, cost-effective and designed for aging in place? If not, then what?
Many seniors are reluctant to move on from homes that do not suit their needs
To be sure, it’s not a simple process to transition an aging person from a home they may have lived in for years to somewhere else.
But at some point, the options simply run out, and homes that a younger person could navigate and maintain become too much to handle.
Robinson said she’s seen this firsthand in her own neighborhood.
The homes on her street “were not suitable at all” for seniors, she said, as many have more than one story and plenty of stairs, which can pose mobility and safety problems for seniors as their physical and mental health naturally declines.
Falls, which Robinson said can take seniors “down for the final count,” have injured several of her neighbors who live in less accessible homes.
At older ages, she said, changing where you live can be more difficult, both emotionally and logistically.
“Making a change is non-trivial — it takes a lot of organization, logistics and a support team,” Robinson said. “Family members are not necessarily equipped to assist Mom and Dad in making a pretty huge transition.”
Robinson said two things tend to drive seniors’ decisions on when they’re going to move, if at all: inertia, or their health, and their financial situation.
For example, near the end of her mother’s life, Robinson said her mom transitioned to assisted living, which she would not have been able to afford without a pension.
“(My mother) had been working all her life, and she actually had a pension,” she said. “People don’t have pensions anymore. We have Social Security and that’s it. Making the decision to burn 5, 6, 7, $8,000 a month (means) you have to do the calculations: How long are you going to live?”
Robinson said those calculations have led her to the conclusion that her current home will be her last.
“I’m turning 75, and I’m kind of taking things in chunks,” Robinson said. “I used to take them in 10-year chunks, now we’re taking them in five-year chunks, and barring any medical change, I’m good with where I am now and where my health is now.”
The upgrades Robinson has made to her home are nearly complete, she said, with only a bathroom remodel for walker and wheelchair accessibility left to finish before her home is future-proof.
“The first time I went to a hotel and said, ‘Give me an accessible room,’ I loved it, and I had no mobility problems at that point,” Robinson said. “But it just makes so much more sense.”
Being able to comfortably use technology has given Robinson more options for staying independent, which she credited to her background working in tech support prior to her retirement.
With the help of grocery delivery, online shopping and hired cleaners who maintain her property inside and out, Robinson said she’s been able to extend her independence and fit her home to her needs, which she feels may be difficult for less technologically literate seniors.
Robinson said she sympathizes with other seniors who are unwilling or financially unable to move on from their current homes, especially in her neighborhood, where many of her neighbors have lived in their homes for several decades.
“You can live for $1.98 where you used to live, or you can live in assisted living for $7,000 a month,” she said.
If her health unexpectedly declines, though, Robinson said she would consider moving to a facility with more robust support services.
Difficult to find assisted living in SLO County
Once people get over the hurdle of deciding it’s time for assisted living, an even larger barrier often faces them next.
Sue Gibson, a senior placement specialist for SLG Senior Care, said in her eight years in senior care and two years in SLO County, she has assessed 110 senior living communities and care facilities and found a serious deficit in the amount of space and affordability for seniors in the area.
“One of the phone calls that I get every week is (with) people that have $1,400 of Social Security, and they’re looking for assisted living, and that does not compute because assisted living starts in our area at around $3,500,” Gibson said.
Of those 110 facilities, 86 are converted homes with around six beds on average, while the remaining 24 are larger care facilities.
Gibson said there’s a “huge gap” in assisted living costs and what SLO County seniors can afford at every level of price, quality and care.
“We’re scrambling to find beds for our our clients,” Gibson said. “At any point in time, out of our hundreds of facilities, there’s only about 15 to 20 that have any beds available.”
Memory care facilities are the most in need, Gibson said, followed by skilled nursing, which she attributed to a lack of competition, as one company — Compass Health — owns all of the skilled nursing facilities.
Gibson said this lack of affordable and available housing in SLO County often leads to having a “tough conversation” with many seniors and families who cannot afford senior housing of any level, whom she must often advise to either live with existing family or face homelessness.
SLO County does not have a program specifically aimed at addressing senior housing issues, social services director Devin Drake said, but there are other means of addressing the problem.
The county’s In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program, Drake said, can provide some services to prevent homelessness to blind, disabled or senior residents.
IHSS, a statewide program, is all about preventive care to keep people housed, Drake said, which is “much cheaper” than moving an individual to a care facility or sending them through the homeless system.
“The IHSS program is all about doing an assessment to see what (a resident’s) needs are in order for them to stay in their home and be safe,” Drake said. “That can be as little as making sure someone’s there to ensure they take their meds, and that’s all the assistance they need, all the way up to full-on care where there’s someone in the home pretty much 24/7.”
There are other benefits to keeping people in their homes outside of the expense of sending them to care facilities, Drake said.
“Just the ability to be able to continue to live on your own and take care of yourself is a huge morale booster,” Drake said.
Downsizing can be a painful, difficult process for seniors
Judy Gilbert, 76, lived in Arroyo Grande for 17 years before she moved to Santa Barbara in search of a smaller dwelling that better suits her needs. In recent years, she shared her house with another senior, Susan Quinones, a registered nurse and SLO County resident of 13 years.
Gilbert said while she “loved” Arroyo Grande, her home and its garden, “I’m 76 now, and it became more work than pleasure for me to maintain. That’s why I decided to downsize.”
Gilbert’s former home in Arroyo Grande was around 2,800 square feet, compared to her new 700-square-foot apartment at the Vista Del Monte Retirement Community in Santa Barbara.
“It feels very, very odd to suddenly not be a homeowner, because I’ve been a homeowner for 50 years — half a century — and “(26 is)” probably about how old I was when my husband and I bought our first home,” Gilbert said. “I’m not participating in that part of the American experience.”
Local moving company Gentle Transitions helped move Gilbert and downsize to fit her new home.
Gentle Transitions owner Greg Gunderson advised that planning for a transition to assisted living is better done sooner than later.
“A lot of people in the senior living industry would suggest to consider options before your health starts to decline, before your family is making the decisions,” Gunderson said.
Gibson similarly said considering the transition to senior living and care is best started earlier than later.
Long-term care insurance, she said, is one solution worth pursuing for seniors in their 60s and their families.
“encourage (the seniors in your family) to pursue long-term care insurance, because long-term care insurance will affordably give them protection so that they don’t end up being homeless in their later years,” Gibson said.
This type of insurance usually costs around $3,500 a year — or about a month’s cost of living in SLO County senior care facilities — and can help ensure some form of care when it’s needed, Gibson said.
In her case, Gilbert said her transition to a retirement home has been a positive one.
“The sense of community I have found in moving to a senior retirement community is invaluable, and I recommend other seniors consider it,” Gilbert said.
Assisted living, home care can be too expensive for SLO seniors
When Gilbert sold her home, her roommate Quinones found housing through her job.
Because of her nursing skills, Quinones was uniquely positioned for a live-in arrangement looking after an elderly resident.
Quinones currently lives in SLO County with a 91-year-old hospice care recipient and his family, providing help in exchange for reduced rent.
When the family decided to move the man home from his hospice care facility amid concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic, Quinones was connected with them through a local doctor in April.
“I know people who have waited and waited to try to get a care provider, and there’s just a real lack of people in those professions now and roles,” Quinones said. “That’s if they qualify for financial assistance to the county, and if they don’t qualify, they’re looking at very expensive costs to get people to come in and help with household tasks.”
Quinones said the cost of in-home assistance can run between $4,000 and $7,000 a month, which is not financially feasible for most people.
Private providers are often paid between $20 and $35 an hour, she said, and those costs can quickly escalate, as many require a minimum of four hours a day, though most care recipients will need more than that.
The older a care recipient gets, the more care they often require, Quinones said. Physical abilities like mobility and daily home upkeep often are first to go, she said, while mental abilities will deteriorate later.
“People do really well at hiding (mental decline) from other people until it becomes real obvious,” Quinones said. “Then it’s things like executive function stuff, like managing finances and making sure that bills are paid.”
Both live-in care and assisted living — including nursing homes, hospice and end-of-life care — become more necessary as a person ages, depending on the stage of life the patient is in and their specific needs, Quinones said.
Janna Nichols, executive director at the 5Cities Homeless Coalition, said she’s seen a spike in what she called the “silver tsunami” of seniors struggling to find housing in the years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I don’t know if you’ve been down to 40 Prado recently,” Nichols said. “It’s a bunch of people walking around with wheelchairs, and that’s the problem, without specialized housing.”
Nichols said there is “nothing” available for senior transitional homes that allows elderly people to age in place.
“For example, affordable care, something short of a skilled nursing facility,” Nichols said. “We don’t have (that option) in this county. There are some in Santa Maria, but we are just lacking those options here.”
Nichols said there’s “no money” in building senior housing, so even in SLO County, with it’s high retirement-age populations, there’s little incentive to build homes suited to a population that may outlive its pensions and Social Security benefits.
Wendy Lewis, president and CEO of El Camino Homeless Organization (ECHO) and its shelter program, said these limited benefits being outstripped by rising rents has led to a growing homeless senior population in SLO County.
Lewis estimated between 30% and 35% of the population that works with ECHO is over the age of 65, a category she said has grown since the pandemic began.
“Your life expectancy when you’re unsheltered is incredibly lowered because of everything you’re facing,” Lewis said. “As the baby boomers age, as a community, that’s something to hopefully be ahead of the curve (on).”
Drake said planning ahead for the expanding senior homeless population is a challenge for nonprofits and the county alike, largely because of the way homeless response funding is distributed.
“In my mind, probably the biggest problem we have is that the state and the federal government. There’s no line item budget for homelessness,” Drake said. “It’s all based on grants, and so if we’re not sure if these grants are going to be renewed, then we can’t put a lot of money towards a program.”
For her part, Quinones said she is looking into living cooperatively with a group of other women her age to keep her housing costs down. She said she has “some savings,” but not enough to retire or live alone.
Quinones said without significant savings of her own and a relatively small current income, she does not qualify for many types of housing or retirement communities as she approaches retirement age.
“It’s almost like you get penalized for having any savings, but if you have no savings, you qualify,” Quinones said. “It’s the middle income people (who can’t find a place).”
This story was originally published November 4, 2022 at 5:30 AM.
