And it’s seldom discussed among individuals, as denial is the current coping mechanism. Aging is not a particular subject on anyone’s mind. Where does a 90-year-old who has run out of funds and can no longer pay for monthly assisted-living rent turn? This question has not been considered.Ī lack in senior housing, care support, and financial assistance… this is difficult information for anyone over 55 to receive about aging in our community. Even finding resources for information on where to turn for senior care needs, or in crisis, is hard. The Council on Aging provides a twice-weekly day program for those who suffer from dementia, as a respite for caregivers. Government services for the social needs of older adults in the Valley are nearly nonexistent. Their programs are fairly limited to transportation, education, socialization, and end-of-life. There are three non-profits in the area who provide some direct services to seniors: Friends in Sonoma Helping (FISH), Vintage House, and Hospice by the Bay. So who is looking out for the older adults in 2019 Sonoma? What is the community’s response to the findings of the In Plain Sight report? When non-profits, community leaders, and government officials in Sonoma Valley were asked, their response was often both unsure and unclear. They are now the faces of a next wave of homelessness already on the rise. It is the middle-income elder who has been missed in the aging conversation and planning nationally. But the middle-income senior has been ignored,” according to Beth Burnham Mace, chief economist at the National Investment Center for Senior Housing and Care. “The low-income cohort has been taken care of by tax subsidies while the high-income cohort is largely self-sufficient. will make the biggest share of seniors, at 43%. will nearly double, growing from 7.9 million to 14.4 million by 2020. Researchers estimated that the number of middle-income elders in the U.S. Alana Semuls wrote, in This is What Life Without Retirement Savings Looks Like, that in 1979, 28 percent of private-sector workers had participated in defined-benefit retirement plans – by 2014, just two percent did.īoomers have also struggled to save, due to the raising cost of living, their education of children, and for many having to subsidize the financial costs of aging parents who need care. By the 1970s, companies who once provided and managed pensions for employees began to turn the responsibility to them, saving the corporations money. The WWII generation had the benefit of company-managed retirement benefits. history.ĭespite the transfer of wealth from their parents, Boomers are not entering their retirement years with the financial security their parents enjoyed. The forewarned impact is here, now: 10,000 Boomers retire each day, creating the largest retirement population in U.S. It impacts seniors in two vital ways: their ability to meet their own continuously rising rental costs on fixed incomes, and the lack of available caregivers in the area.įor years we’ve heard about the impact that the Baby Boomer generation will have on the nation. The sheer number of help wanted signs at local businesses in the Valley has an almost direct correlation to the lack of affordable housing. Unaffordable housing impacts workers’ ability to live reasonably close to their places of employment. This issue has been a key public concern for more than a decade. At the time of the study, only 1% of the entire non-profit expenditures were for the benefit of older adults.Īnother important issue noted in the study was affordable housing. This article’s focus is on our aging population. Sonoma County government estimates that 25% of the county population is over age 65 this translates to 11,000 seniors in our area. One of the key findings of the study was the current size and growing population of older adults in the Valley. One can readily see how generous and sizable philanthropy is from a Valley population of 44,000. Meanwhile, the City of Sonoma’s budget for 2014 was $31 million. Thirty-four million dollars came from individuals. She discovered that charitable organizations in Sonoma Valley received revenue of more than $113 million for the year. Katherine Fulton, who conducted the study, used 2014 for her research into local philanthropy. In 2017 the Sonoma Valley Fund published a study called Hidden In Plain Sight, an “in-depth look at our community’s needs and its charitable resources: an integrated view of the demand and supply sides of the Valley’s philanthropy.” The findings were compelling and significant.
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