LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
CAMP Talk |
by Bill Sievert |
Peace and Acceptance in a New Emerald City To be frank, 2007 has not been one of my favorite years. Not only have I had to overcome the cerebral crisis of "turning 60," but I also have had to make frequent trips to Kentucky to help my sister tend to my mother whose declining health has resulted in frequent hospital stays and multiple moves (from her home to assisted living to rehabilitation centers to a nursing home). In addition to making tough decisions and providing loving support for Mom, the sheer amount of paperwork required of us by the mind-boggling bureaucracies of Medicare, supplemental health plans, long-term care insurance, physical therapists, drug coverers and countless medical providers has made me all the more personally anxious about getting older. Unlike my mother but like many fellow/sister gay people (and quite a few straight friends), I won't have children to turn to for help when I no longer can manage my own affairs. And, believe me, financial affairs get more and more complicated the longer you live. Even if you have banked a reasonable amount of savings, it can disappear very quickly if someone is not available to become your personal financial caregiver, double- and triple-checking to make sure you are getting all that you are entitled to at every turn of the system's screws. Even then, the costs can soon absorb a lifetime of careful preparation for a rainy day. A lot of us baby boomers have discovered that we face an especially rocky future unless we band together to create alternative means of managing our late-life yearsjust as we have fought to create social change throughout our lifetimes. In recent months I have been approached by two different groups of friendsone primarily straight, the other gay and lesbianto get involved in plans to create our own small-group senior living homes. The idea has been in the back of my mind ever since I first wrote a CAMPTalk column about it nearly a decade ago. (Yes, this winds up my ninth year of doing these columns, and I look forward to sharing more ideas both serious and silly with you for a tenth. Sorry that this piece isn't typically frivolous holiday fare, but perhaps addressing the topic now will lead to happier holidays for many of us in the years to come.) John and I have decided to join with a group of gay and lesbian friends, all participants in our social networking Triangle Group in the Mount Dora area of Central Florida, to pursue the concept of establishing our own elder-care residential complex. One of the organizing women, a nurse with experience in senior care, has come up with a great name for our compound: The Emerald City. And local gay realtors are scouting affordable properties (with appropriate zoning) for our group's investment. The first meeting of our board of directors was scheduled for Thanksgiving weekend, andthough enthused we are no Pollyannas about the difficulties we face in pulling together a viable plan. In addition to per-member investment shares and construction costs, we face many hurdles in acquiring licensing that would allow medical personnel and caregivers to serve us at home and make it possible to be covered by insurance plans (from long-term care to Medicare). We know it will take years to accomplish our goals, whether we end up with a small-group facility for fewer than two dozen folks or a much larger development for scores of members. As a start, we are studying other pioneering gay retirement communities that are sprouting up coast to coast. The work of the Gay & Lesbian Association of Retiring Persons (GLARP) has been most helpful. If you're interested in this issue, be sure to visit the GLARP website at www.gaylesbianretiring.org. It includes a list of existing and planned communities, including The Palms of Manasota in Sarasota, Carefree Cove in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, RainbowVisions in Santa Fe, the Stonewall Community in Boston, and forthcoming facilities in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Featured on the website is a GLARP-sponsored campus being developed in Palm Springs. The architectural plans are very attractive, and the concept is to include "senior residential housing for healthy adults over 55, an assisted living center and a skilled nursing center where the LGBT community can age in peace and in acceptance." The keywords here are "peace and acceptance." Not all conventional senior-living centers are gay friendly. In fact some are downright hostile. In a remarkable must-read article, "Aging and Gay, and Facing Prejudice in the Twilight," published in The New York Times on October 9, writer Jane Gross documents stories of elderly homosexuals in nursing homes who have been "disrespected, shunned or mistreated in ways that range from hurtful to deadly, even leading some to commit suicide. Some have seen their partners and friends isolated. Others live in fear of the day when they are dependent on strangers for the most personal care." Count me among them. Not only do childless senior gay men and women require help from trusted caregivers to handle financial matters and paperwork, we also should be able to surround ourselves with nonjudgmental people with whom we can share memories, laugh and make the most of the later stages of our lives. (Just imagine: group sing-alongs of "I Will Survive" and "We Are Family.") As for us baby boomers, we are also the kind of people who will want a voice in the policies and procedures of our residences; an ownership/membership share of a relatively small group home among friends would allow us to stay involved as long as our health allows. Perhaps the time for hippie communes has finally come. Though John and I are working on the concept down here in Florida, our former hometown of Rehoboth Beach is also a perfect venue for a gay/lesbian senior-living facility. And if it were to be developed under the experienced auspices of CAMP Rehoboth, I'm sure it would be one of the finest in the world. I'm sure we'll have more to say on this topic in the year(s) to come. Meanwhile, have a happy and hopeful holiday season! Bill Sievert can be reached at billsievert@earthlink.net. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 17, No. 15 November 21, 2007 |