Aging gracefully
While her peers worried about pimples or what was cool in school, Meredith Oppenheim was busy gathering recipes for her grandmother. “She decided to put my grandfather on an oat bran regimen and cut white sugar out of their diets,” said Oppenheim. While “Snibbles” did not make the bestseller list, the senior cookbook got national attention and took the teen and her parents on the road to hospitals, nursing homes and other senior care providers. At 16, Oppenheim said, she received a congressional award for her book and concern for the aging, and she”™s been trailblazing for the older generation ever since.
What made her gravitate toward the Greatest Generation? “Maybe I was born old, but I think it was having two wonderful grandmothers,” the 34-year-old Harvard graduate said and smiled. She has made a career of planning and developing senior housing communities for Marriott International Senior Living Services and K. Hovnanian, where she spearheaded that company”™s first foray into “age-restricted enriched housing.” She formed her own specialty group, Oppenheim Real Estate Ventures, prior to joining Savills Granite in June 2007 to help expand its senior health and housing services.
Oppenheim shared her expertise with planners, elder care providers and the business community Jan. 29 at Goshen”™s Harness Racing Museum. She pointed to a shortfall of services and housing for aging baby boomers.
“The AARP reports 89 percent of the elderly want to remain at home ”“ but where will these homes be located? Many are going across the border to Mexico and it is not good news for an industry that wants people out of their homes and into adult communities,” said Oppenheim. “Boomers have re-created the world. We are trying to prepare for this age segment of America and for those who are caring for an aging parent or other family member.”
Fran Melder of Southwinds Retirement Home in Middletown concurred. “Our youngest resident is an average age of 82, going up to 100. People want to remain in their homes as long as possible.”
The growing trend toward urban migration fits in with the wants and needs of the graying population, continued Oppenheim. Since Manhattan and closer urban centers are financially out of reach for many, the suburbs are increasingly attractive to adults who want a more urban-type community with an attractive physical backdrop ”“ something the Hudson Valley region has a wealth of.
Unfortunately, it lacks the housing choices, work force and services required to make that happen.
“Culture, education and resource facilities are something this age group needs in order to remain actively and intellectually engaged. It not only makes for a healthier lifestyle, but keeps the mind sharp and wits keen,” Oppenheim said. “Their inclusion into communities works well for business because they will be shopping, dining and visiting galleries and other cultural venues when others will be at work or in school.”
New York, however, needs to catch up, quickly. Pennsylvania, New Jersey and California have embraced housing where the neo-urban traditional building concept is popular and where “imbedding senior housing into the community has had positive results,” Oppenheim said. “Not only are they consumers, but they are a valuable resource for parents who need after-school care. The idea of elders in the community caring for youngsters seems to have become an antiquated notion, but it is was once the backbone of America, and we need to re-introduce this idea and get communities to welcome it with open arms.”
College towns and cities are also very appealing areas for active adult, enriched housing, she said. “When campuses are closed, that”™s the time to bring in seniors to enjoy what colleges and universities have to offer, attend classes and putting campuses to use year-round. It is a win for both academia and adults, and in turn, the entire community.”
Seniors are getting creative, too, noted Oppenheim, to combat the lack of housing and lack of desire to leave family and friends for other climates. “Five or six people can get together, apply for a zoning change for multi-family use and build a house to suit their needs. That way, they get the house they want at a price they can afford.”
So what”™s the fuss? While Oppenheim”™s options sound within reach and attractive, try tackling local planning and zoning boards, many of which fear “mother-daughter” housing “will become rentals instead of true mother/daughters,” said one planning board member. New Jersey-based Carteret Group”™s project in the village of Woodbury, Woodbury Junction, is being stalled because the municipality has no provision in its housing code for children over the age of 18 to live with their parents. (In most adult communities, age-restricted housing requires at least one adult be over the age of 55 and the rest of the family to be 19 or older.)
Joining Oppenheim at the forum hosted by the Orange County Community Foundation was the Goshen-based not-for-profit Elant senior health and housing network”™s Vice President and Executive Director Christine Rice, who stressed that each decade brings different challenges. “What is needed when at 50 or 60 can radically change by 65 or 70. We need both housing that is not only ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) accessible but can be adapted as needs change.”
Rice added that, “People need to start planning for how they will live in their current home before they can no longer physically or financially afford to make those changes, not after the fact,” which includes zoning variances to permit mother-daughter housing and accessory apartments.
One problem facing developers who want to bring active adult, enriched housing to the region is money, said planner Ed Garling of Goshen. “We are having a financial crisis right now. We see many projects that have been approved but not built. The developers are trying to sell the approvals because they can”™t get the money to build.”
Garling said while some towns permit accessory apartments and encourage two-family housing, others try to keep their communities strictly single-family. It may be time to change that mindset if New York wishes to keep the middle class 55-and-over group from fleeing to other states.
Nancy Proyect, executive director of the Orange County Citizens Foundation, has put the lack of affordable housing at the top of her group”™s mission: “Affordable, work force housing, multi-generational complexes and market rate communities are all needed here. If you want to live on five acres and see no neighbors, that”™s a choice, but one that is out of reach for many. But we have to have other choices, too, and realize we are chasing our own children out of our communities. They are our future. They need a place to live, too. So do the caregivers who will care for the growing number of seniors. ”¦”
Anne Palmer Moss, vice president of development for Elant, was selected as one of 35 fellows in the National Aging Services Leadership program. “In 2007,we hosted the first elder care summit in Tarrytown,” she said. “That was a beginning. Now, groups around the region are responding. Mae Carpenter, Westchester County”™s commissioner for aging, will hold another elder care forum in September.
“The goal is to get as many municipalities, builders, planners and elected officials to realize we need housing for the work force, for the seniors to age in place and to create communities for those who can no longer care for themselves to live in dignity.”