Retirement Living News

January 2006

HEADLINES  (Click on headline to read story)

* Luxury Rentals Seen As Option for Active Adult Living
* Where Will You Live?  Climate Model Predicts Dramatic Changes 
Over Next 100 Years
* AARP Study Shows 50+ Workers are More Cost-Effective 
Than Previously Believed
* New Report Ranks States on Quality of Emergency Care
* White House Conference on Aging Prepares to Send Key Resolutions to President and Congress
* Sunrise Continues Expansion Outside U.S.
* MetLife Mature Market Institute Offers Online Booklet 
Explaining New Medicare Drug Program

Archive of Past Issues                          New Retirement Communities

NEWS STORIES

Luxury Rentals Seen As Option for Active Adult Living 

As the first wave of baby boomers turns 60 this year many of them are going to be looking at a different type of housing option as they move into the next phase of their lives. They are going to want homes with prestige that are maintenance-free, service-enriched and socially interactive. Plus, they want to live in communities close to family and friends. 

Developers are just beginning to recognize the "want-it-all" needs of the 55+ crowd and are responding with new types of housing to serve this rapidly growing group. These new options have great appeal for all seniors who can live independently and think of themselves as young at heart. 

Nearly every healthy and active American over 55 asks the question, "Where do I go now?" After the kids are gone the big house has become an expensive burden. Additionally, there is a growing tendency to invest the liquidity from a house in securities for current income. 

To date, age-targeted housing has been focused on two ends of the spectrum -- affluent home buyers in communities where supportive services are lacking, and seniors with limited incomes who qualify for government-subsidized rentals.

However, in between the two is a vast majority of middle-class seniors with limited alternative housing choices. And few properties combine the convenience of renting with the amenities of luxury single-family housing. This type of residence is not assisted living. Rather, it is healthy, exciting living that offers the supportive services one would expect in a resort setting. 

Many retirees who can still hit a golf ball prefer a service-enriched lifestyle that offers them the opportunity to live among healthy, active people while being able to choose the services they will need to "age in place" rather than having to pay a much higher fixed price for services they don't want, as may be required in an independent living facility. For these people, the ability to choose is very important for their dignity and self-esteem. 

This type of rental will allow active adults to leave behind the drudgery of home maintenance for luxury and convenience that will be available with a single monthly rental fee - without all the extra and hidden costs of homeownership, such as condominium or home owner association fees, property taxes, utility bills, repairs and special assessments. 

These residences may offer a variety of features typically found in single-family homes -- such as eat-in kitchens with pantries, king-size master bedrooms, large dining areas with built-in china closets, and his-and-her master bath accommodations. Some floor plans may feature gas fireplaces, powder rooms and wet bars. More than likely they will be designed for the current and future needs of residents, incorporating a full range of universal design features such as wider doorways, lower light switches, lower countertops and safety bars.

Amenities at these luxury communities might also include a state-of-the-art fitness center, sauna, massage room, aerobics room, outdoor pool with whirlpool spa and bathhouse, putting green, walking paths, tennis and bocce courts, onsite medical offices and wellness center. For socializing, there may be a grand lobby, a lounge with piano bar, a café and catering kitchen, theater, billiards room, crafts room, card room, library, outdoor garden plots and guest suites. They may also have a concierge service and a fully-equipped business center and conference room. 

Some facilities may offer residents a diverse array of in-home a-la-carte services to make residents' lives easier. These may include medical consultation, grocery and meal delivery, cleaning, beauty services, pet care, entertainment and more.

Research has shown that when a rental housing option with luxury amenities is offered to active adults at a monthly after-tax cost equivalent to homeownership, a significant market segment will choose to rent and keep their equity in the bank. The ability to free up liquidity when "downsizing" the household is very attractive to many seniors. 

For a particular segment of the 50+ market, renting provides the peace of mind that comes from having a fixed annual housing cost that is not subject to tax increases, condo assessments or natural calamity. Renting also makes it affordable to live in more than one home without making a long-term financial commitment in more than one location.
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Where Will You Live?  Climate Model Predicts Dramatic Changes Over Next 100 Years

Researchers at Purdue University, using the most comprehensive climate model available of the continental United States, predict more extreme temperatures throughout the country and more extreme precipitation along the Gulf Coast, in the Pacific Northwest and east of the Mississippi. 

The climate model, run on supercomputers at Purdue University, takes into account a large number of factors that have been incompletely incorporated in past studies, such as the effects of snow reflecting solar energy back into space and of high mountain ranges blocking weather fronts from traveling across them, said Noah S. Diffenbaugh, the team's lead scientist. Diffenbaugh said a better understanding of these factors - coupled with a more powerful computer system on which to run the analysis - allowed the team to generate a far more coherent image of what weather we can expect to encounter in the continental United States for the next century. Those expectations, he said, paint a very different climate picture for most parts of the country. 

"This is the most detailed projection of climate change that we have for the U.S.," said Diffenbaugh, an assistant professor of earth and atmospheric sciences in Purdue's College of Science and a member of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center. "And the changes our model predicts are large enough to substantially disrupt our economy and infrastructure." 

"These projections are not necessarily about specific weather events," Diffenbaugh said. "But they do give us a good idea about what kind of weather to expect over the long run in a particular part of the country." Some of these expectations are as follows:                                                                                                               

• The desert Southwest will experience more heat waves of greater intensity, combined with less summer precipitation. Water is already at a premium in the four-corners states and southern Nevada and, as years pass, even less water will be available for the region's burgeoning populations, with extreme hot events increasing in frequency by as much as 500 percent.
  
• The Gulf Coast will be hotter and will receive its precipitation in greater volumes over shorter time periods. "The region actually will get more rainfall than it does now, but it will not be steady," Diffenbaugh said. "We project more dry spells punctuated by heavier rainfalls. We need to perform further analyses to understand how much of this is related to tropical cyclone activity."
  
• In the northeastern United States - roughly the region east of Illinois and north of Kentucky - summers will be longer and hotter. "Imagine the weather during the hottest two weeks of the year," Diffenbaugh said. "The area could experience temperatures in that range lasting for periods of up to two months by century's end."
  
• Similarly, the continental United States will experience an overall warming trend: Temperatures now experienced during the coldest two weeks of the year will be a past memory, and winter's length will diminish as well, according to the model. 

Diffenbaugh emphasized that, while the model was in no way designed to return an alarmist image of our climate's future, the picture it painted should be considered.

"The more detail we look at with these models, the more dramatic the climate's response is," he said. "Critics have complained that climate models lack sufficient spatial detail to be trusted. In terms of looking at the whole contiguous United States, we've quadrupled the spatial detail and, as a result, it appears that climate change is going to be even more dramatic than we previously thought. Of course, we can never be completely certain of the future, but it's clear that as we consider more and more detail, the picture of future climate change becomes more and more severe."
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AARP Study Shows 50+ Workers are More Cost-Effective
Than Previously Believed

A new report prepared for AARP challenges the common perception that 50+ workers "cost more" than younger workers. The study by Towers Perrin, a professional services firm, found that the extra per-employee total compensation cost of retaining or attracting more 50+ workers ranges from negligible to three percent in key industries. At the same time, the research found that older workers are more motivated to exceed expectations on the job than younger workers.

Earlier Towers Perrin research found that motivation is highly correlated with engagement, making it clear that both engagement and motivation increase with age. Moreover, this research found a strong relationship between employee engagement and financial performance, showing that companies with higher levels of employee engagement tend to outperform those with lower levels of engagement.

"These findings are especially important because the workforce is aging, labor shortages are projected in a number of sectors, and many employees intend to continue to work beyond the retirement age," said AARP CEO Bill Novelli in releasing the study today.

"The report concludes that enhancing retention or hiring of older workers can result in marginal differences in total cost for the talent pools studied, while experienced people can offer a distinct performance advantage in many key roles," said Towers Perrin Principal Roselyn Feinsod.

The AARP study comes at a time when projections show that by 2012, nearly 20 percent of the workforce will be age 55 or older, a jump from under 13 percent in 2000. This pattern is expected to continue well into the future, given that AARP surveys have shown that more than two-thirds (68 percent) of 50 to 70 year old workers say that they plan to work into their retirement years or never retire.

The report highlights four industries--energy, financial services, health care and retail--but the findings apply to companies in other sectors as well. The report says that without exception, the 10 major employers interviewed for the study said that age 50 plus workers have experience and other desirable traits that translate into a tremendous plus for their businesses. To read the 100-page report or the executive summary, go to: http://www.aarp.org/research/work/employment/workers_fifty_plus.html
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New Report Ranks States on Quality of Emergency Care

When planning a retirement destination, seniors should look carefully at the quality of care they would receive upon entering a health care system. For many who experience chest pain or some other emergency, the entry point is a hospital emergency department.

A panel of experts appointed by the American College of Emergency Physicians recently evaluated emergency medical care available in each state and the District of Columbia based on 50 criteria. States were given an overall grade and a ranking based on each of four categories: emergency care, quality and patient safety, public health and injury prevention, and the medical-liability environment. Most states received low marks.

The just-released first-ever National Report Card on the State of Emergency Medicine finds an emergency care system characterized by overcrowding, declining access to care, soaring liability costs and a poor capacity to deal with public health or terrorist disasters. ACEP reported that the emergency medicine system of the United States as a whole has earned a grade of C-minus -- barely above a D. No state scored either an A or F for its overall grade. California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the District of Columbia led the nation with overall grades of B. Rating worst in the nation with overall grades of D+ or D were Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming. More than 80 percent of states earned poor or near-failing overall grades (C+ to D).

To check the grade for the state where you plan to retire, go to: http://my.acep.org/site/PageServer?pagename=wp1_homepage

The report compares numbers of emergency rooms and physicians on a per-capita basis but doesn't consider that residents in urban areas might be closer to emergency rooms. Its goal is to promote policies that improve emergency care at a time when rising medical costs are reducing the number of emergency rooms and hospital beds nationwide.

The number of emergency rooms in the U.S. has dropped 14 percent since 1993. There also are 103,000 fewer hospital beds than a decade ago, according to the report. It says the states should work harder to increase the number of emergency care facilities and to attract board-certified emergency care physicians. To view the 129-page report, go to: http://my.acep.org/site/DocServer/2006-NationalReportCard.pdf?docID=221
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White House Conference on Aging Prepares to
Send Key Resolutions to President and Congress

The White House Conference on Aging concluded its fifth conference in 40 years last month and is now preparing to send 50 delegate-approved resolutions to the President and Congress for action. The theme of the conference was "The Booming Dynamics of Aging: From Awareness to Action" which reflects the WHCoA's legislative mandate to focus on the aging issues of today and tomorrow. It included discussions of the 78 million baby boomers, the first of whom are turning 60 this year.

The nearly 1,200 delegates looked at the opportunities and challenges facing families, communities, country and the world, and discussed how to shape aging policy and programs for the future. Among the broad categories discussed were: planning along the lifespan, health and long term living, the workplace of the future, social and civic engagement, the community, and the marketplace.

Delegates in attendance selected the top 50 resolutions to present and participated in working groups to develop strategies for implementing the resolutions. The top 10 resolutions as voted by the delegates were:

• Reauthorize the Older Americans Act within the first six months following the conference.
• Develop a coordinated, comprehensive long-term care strategy by supporting public and private sector initiatives that address financing, choice, quality, service delivery, and the paid and unpaid workforce.
• Ensure that older Americans have transportation options to retain their mobility and independence.
• Strengthen and improve the Medicaid programs for seniors.
• Strengthen and improve the Medicare program.
• Support geriatric education and training for all healthcare professionals, paraprofessionals, health profession students, and direct care workers.
• Promote innovative models of non-institutional long-term care.  Improve recognition, assessment, and treatment of mental illness and depression among older Americans. 
• Attain adequate numbers of healthcare personnel in all professions who are skilled, culturally competent, and specialize in geriatrics.
• Improve state- and local-based integrated delivery systems to meet 21st century needs of seniors.

Sunrise Continues Expansion Outside U.S.

Sunrise Senior Living, the nation's largest provider of senior living services, continues to progress in the development of domestic and international senior living community development. At the end of 2005 it had 415 communities in the United States, Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom. During the fourth quarter of 2005, the company began construction of six new communities in the United Kingdom and Germany. When completed this will bring the total in these two countries to 10 - five in Germany and five in the UK.

A year ago Sunrise announced the opening of its first community in Germany located in the suburbs of Hamburg. It offers assisted living and care for residents with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of memory impairment.

Sunrise also operates 11 communities in Canada, three in British Columbia and eight in Ontario. In the U.S. and in other countries, its services include a full range of personalized senior living services, including independent living, assisted living, care for individuals with Alzheimer's and other forms of memory loss, as well as nursing and rehabilitative care.
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MetLife Mature Market Institute Offers Online Booklet
Explaining New Medicare Drug Program

Many seniors are still confused about the new Medicare Part D prescription drug program. To help clarify information about the program, MetLife Mature Market Institute has put together a helpful booklet (online) which answers frequently asked questions. The material is adapted from information provided in Medicare & You, 2006, a publication produced for Medicare beneficiaries by the Center of Medicare & Medicaid Services. It also includes a listing of resources for those who would like more detailed information related to this program. A phone number for each state that can be used to obtain more information is provided. http://www.metlife.com/WPSAssets/
18322317351133454744V1FMedicarePartD.pdf
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