A Guide to Continuing Care Communities Where Should I Live When I Retire? Bernice Hunt

ISBN: 0-7570-0272-2 Length: 160 Pages Size: 6 X 9-inch Format: Quality Paperback Category: Retirement Planning Price: $13.95 US Availability: In Print Click below for: Synopsis • Contents Introduction • Reviews

Synopsis

With a surge in the number of people planning to retire, interest in retirement communities is skyrocketing. The most common problem in choosing a community is sorting out the many types available. Unfortunately, with so many ads promoting various "golden age" living facilities, it’s not easy to tell fact from fiction--that is, until now. Bernice Hunt has written a complete guide to one of the most popular types of retirement options--Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs)--where you can enjoy your independent life to the fullest secure in knowing that if you become ill you will receive all the care you need.

In this book, you will learn what CCRCs are, how they operate, and what they offer. You will also discover how they differ from one another. Make no mistake, however: It is an emotional and sometimes scary business to leave one’s familiar home and move into a new community that may, or may not, be as wonderful as the brochures promise. So the author details the psychological process that will allow you to give up the known for the unknown. In addition, she tells you how to locate CCRCs, and how to determine which one is right for you.

Where Should I Live When I Retire? clearly shows you the advantages and disadvantages of CCRCs. You’ll learn what to look for, what to steer clear of, what you have a right to expect, how you can understand contracts, and how you can best make the transition when you move. Here is all the information you need to chart your course for a happy retirement.

Bernice Hunt, MS, starting as a writing major at the University of Wisconsin, went on to publish more than 70 books and numerous magazine articles. In mid-life she became an editor, then earned a dual master’s degree in mental health counseling and gerontology at Long Island University. When she and her husband, writer Morton Hunt, began to think about retiring to a continuing care community, they naturally looked to books for the information they needed. To their surprise, there were none. They proceeded by trial and error, learning as they went. This book is a detailed step-by-step guide for the about-to-be-retired, filled with information unavailable elsewhere.

Contents

Introduction

1. Crossing the Age Equator
2. Continuing-Care Retirement Communities
3. The Search for a “Perfect” Community
4. Looking Over the Information Packets
5. Visiting the Communities on Your List
6. Checking Out the Amenities
7. Taking the Plunge
8. The First Year and Beyond
Conclusion

Appendix A. Checklist for Comparing CCRCs
Appendix B. Directive to Heirs

Resources
About the Author
Index

Introduction

This book is your complete guide to continuing-care retirement communities (CCRCs), the retirement option that eliminates concerns about long-term care and its financial burdens. A CCRC--or life-care retirement community, as they are sometimes called--enables you to continue your present independent lifestyle, but provides assisted living or nursing care on the premises if and when it becomes necessary. This book explains how CCRCs operate, what they offer, how they differ from one another, how to locate them, how to figure out which one is right for you, and how to proceed if you decide you want to live in one. But much more than that, this book also takes you through the psychological process of giving up the known for the unknown. Leaving one’s familiar home and moving into a new community-- that may or may not be as wonderful as the brochure says it is--can be an emotional and sometimes daunting experience.

So why do people move into continuing-care retirement communities? As you’ll soon discover, there are many excellent reasons--longterm care foremost among them. You’ll learn about the advantages and disadvantages of CCRCs and how you can avoid common pitfalls when making a choice. You’ll also find out what to look for, what to steer clear of, what you have a right to expect, how to discriminate among various kinds of contracts, and how to make the transition when you move.

When my husband and I became interested in the CCRC concept in 1995, we had no idea how to get information. There was nothing in print that told us what we needed to know, and we spent a huge amount of time and money doing it the hard way. I would have given a great deal for a book like this one. That’s why I undertook this project--to help you along your way.

The heart of this book is the account of the journey--psychological, emotional, and personal--that my husband and I took to get from our happy home in East Hampton, New York, to a continuing-care retirement community in a suburb of Philadelphia. It often felt like a journey to Mars. Your experience will, of course, be different from ours, but much of it will be similar. And I hope that at least some of the difference will have been made by the information you find in this book. I wish you a safe journey, with some fun along the way, and a happy landing.

Reviews

to come

BACK TO TOP OF PAGE