How to find the right housing option for you
It is retirement! Accommodation can be a focus. Do you need to downsize the family home? A unit, perhaps, with a smaller or little garden space, can be easier to maintain. The purchase price can be prohibitive. You can lease a unit, to free up any capital. There is available, subsidised housing for people on benefits, such as the senior’s pension. But, waiting lists apply.
As we age, there are available, as necessary, subsidised cleaning and maintenance services from local councils, at a reduced fee. These can include home cleaning, window washing, cleaning of spoutings, and home delivery of a range of meals. You may need to engage the services of a gardener, as funds permit.
If you have little family support, aging packages are available, in order to maintain seniors in their own home. It is all dependent on your financial capacity.
Then there are retirement villages. These provide a new community of friends and acquaintances, and can offer facilities and services in one location. The residents can dwell in their own units, and socialise, or not. Some retirement villages provide bus transport for shopping and leisure trips, meals in a communal dining area, recreational activities and interest groups, as well as on-call nursing supervision for any medical emergency.
Furthermore, some retirement villages maintain their own nursing home attachment, but there are waiting lists. In summary, life in a retirement village is what you make it. You can decide where your best interests lie.
Finally, there are nursing homes. These days, most nursing homes are managed by private organisations, although some are government funded. Again, waiting lists apply.
Nursing homes can be our ‘forever homes’, as our faculties and mobility decline. Most nursing homes are well maintained, staffed and cleaned appropriately, with well-cooked meals. They provide appropriate age-related activities, and on-call specialist geriatric nurses, with access to other medical professional support.
Some single senior people have been known to apply to nursing homes, but often placement is a family decision. Costs and waiting lists can be factors in this area.
Do not worry about such matters until it happens. Let the future take care of itself. You woke up, anyway, cheers! We can all aim to be happy campers, dear!