The Foreign Service Journal, February 2010

22 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 0 contract, these monthly fees look- ed pretty reasonable — in fact, a saving. Individual real estate taxes may be paid separately by the owner of a condominium apart- ment, while they are included in the monthly fees in a cooperative system. Some senior living facilities have continuing health packages whereby monthly fees continue at the same rate, or increase only modestly, if a resident’s health requires moving to one of the assisted living or skilled nursing accommodations. In these cases a med- ical examination is required at the outset to gain admit- tance to the facility and to qualify for such a package, which seems usually to be surprisingly economical. By the way, those people (unlike us) who had the good sense to take out long-term care insurance will find that a good chunk of their monthly fees may be covered by the in- surance. Demand has been so great, at least in the Washing- ton, D.C., area, that more attractive senior living facilities have required a substantial refundable deposit, often $10,000, merely for the privilege of being added to the waiting list. As mentioned earlier, the recession has dampened this demand, although it will return. Checking Out the Possibilities When you start to look, you will probably be aston- ished at how many senior living establishments exist these days, and how many are within three miles of where you live. This is definitely a growth industry. As usual, the Internet is very helpful. Just for starters, consult the following sites: www.retirementliving.com takes you to the “Re- tirement Living Information Center,” which has a wealth of references. www.retirement-living.com (adding the hyphen) will take you to “Guide to Retirement Living,” a tremen- dous source of information for the entire mid-Atlantic re- gion (D.C., Va., Md., Del., Pa. and N.J.). They publish magazines you can order over the Internet that list by lo- cation all retirement facilities and their attributes, and provide advice on consultants who can help you think through your priorities and guide you in realizing them. I assume there are similar Web sites for other regions of the country, but did not take the time to scroll through the 25,000-plus hits you find when you Google this subject. www.sunriseseniorliving. com is also worth a look. Sunrise Senior Living is a major enter- prise in the field, operating some 400 senior living communities in 38 states, Canada, Germany and the U.K. Sunrise has fallen on hard times recently due to overly ambitious expansion and accounting gaffes, and may even be forced into Chapter 11. However, it has maintained high standards. Their Web site will take you by Zip code to a listing and description of facilities (some 30 in the Washington met- ropolitan area alone) in varied price ranges, but each probably highly competitive in its class. www.ericksonliving.com is the informative Web site of Erickson Retirement Communities, a national chain of 19 establishments with a good reputation. Due Diligence You will want to question residents of a facility: How do they like it? What are the positive and negative as- pects? But a warning from our experience: Human na- ture is such that people will tend to give their own facility high marks and downplay its problems. Also, it is not a bad idea to try — and to time — the drive from a facility to locations you will often be visiting. We have found that location is highly important, since we have maintained our regular agenda and do not regard Fox Hill as a “des- tination.” If you have a dog to walk, or if you like to be outdoors, look into adjacent paths and wooded lanes (and confirm that dogs are welcome). Ask about balconies or terraces or screened porches, none of which are as com- mon as we would like in these communities. Higher-end apartments often have (gas) fireplaces. Ceiling heights seem to vary from floor to floor, so find out whether the apartment model you wish to buy will have the same height as the model you visited. Ask whether guest rooms or guest apartments are available to rent on the compound, in case you have overnight visitors. Measure your furniture, rugs and pictures against the square footage of apartments under consideration — on the whole, rooms in retirement living establishments are F O C U S Senior living facilities always have apartment floor plans and pricing charts available for review, and you can arrange to visit various models.