Senior Living - Part 3

An opinion on long-term care insurance

Maybe this is a good time to remind everyone that long-term care truly is 'a family affair'. In our country, 90% of care is undertaken by family in one's own home and 1 in 5 caregivers still provide care to their loved ones even when in a care facility. As well, 80% of Alzheimer's-dementia persons are cared for at home, usually by a spouse. "It upsets me!" "It upsets my family!" These are the two major barriers recently identified for not having a conversation about our future long-term care! Shockingly, the majority of couples have not talked with their spouses yet about the three key aspects pertaining to their future care: - - Their options when they need some care and related costs - - What they expect of their family members - - How their future care is to be paid for Many people ask me about long-term care insurance (LTCI) as a method of financing some of the costs of our potential future care. I'm not a planner, insurance agent or broker, nor do I work …

Should I stay or should I go?

Should I stay or should I go?; Choice can be difficult for aging boomers when options aren't as easy as they seem Canadian seniors may have long ceased playing games of leapfrog, but their numbers haven't. The latest census figures from Statistics Canada show seniors, those aged 65 and older, vaulting to 14.8 per cent of the population in 2011 from 11.6 in 1991; by 2031, that number will be almost 23 per cent. The explosion is due to the mountain of baby boomers - those born between 1946 and 1964 - now entering their senior years. And with that shifting demographic comes a shift in housing needs. The sprawling, maintenance-heavy sub-urban home, for example, will become impractical for many. But the majority of aging Canadians want to stay in their own homes - rather than living in a group set-ting, like a retirement residence - as long as they can, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. Some solutions are already common: Renovating an existing home to accommoda…

Are we ready for the boomer tsunami?

John and Bernice Klassen are stumped when asked what they miss about suburban Ottawa. Six years ago, they sold their four-bedroom house in Nepean and moved to a low-rise condo building not far from Elgin Street. They were like a lot of baby boomers: fed up with maintaining a house that was too big for their needs. "It was also a question of lifestyle," says John, 63, and now retired from foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada. "There, you had to get in the car just to buy a litre of milk. Here, everything's within walking distance: the National Arts Centre, the ByWard Market." "The transition was so easy, we've never looked back," says Bernice, also 63, and a retired college teacher. "We both wanted to move downtown and we said: 'It's either now or we won't be able to afford it.' " The Klassens, after a lifetime of working hard, likely needn't worry about housing. They have pensions, savings and a comfortable home. Down the road, they can sell the condo and …