I am going to use my three years of experience living in a RetCom (retirement community) and visiting a dozen others, to pass on some information I wish I had earlier. It is about choosing the RetCom that is right for you.

I am always one to plan everything out. I thoroughly study the destinations and route for all the many vacation trips I have taken. So, it should not be surprising to find that I had done the same thing in choosing where I would spend my final years.

Up front, I want to get something that bugs me off my chest about all retirement community literature you will be given. You will NEVER saw ANY pictures from any RetCom that didn’t include everyone smiling as shown above. Get serious, there will definitely be things to smile about, but not ALL THE TIME! Just like life in general, there will be times of joy, times of sadness, times of depression wherever you choose to live the remainder of your life.

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One option for your final years is to do it in four stages.

1. Independent Living Community – This is thought to be a place where the focus is on enjoyment in your senior years. It means you shed all the work and responsibilities of homeownership and let someone else do it for you. You often move into an apartment size private residence which usually includes one or more bedrooms, along with a full kitchen. In these places, there is always something new and enjoyable to do. They often include more than one restaurant style dining rooms, including sit down, buffet, and Café style options. There are swimming pools, golf courses, shuffleboard, pickle ball, and, depending on the cost of the facility, just about any hobby you desire. It generally means being around other, mostly able-bodied people. Some of the larger facilities even include on-site doctors, dentists, and such. One even included a lawyer.
   
   There are usually two types for payment. One is a larger month-to-month payment, and the other is a rather large entry fee, with smaller monthly payments. When the time comes, when you are told that your care is beyond the capabilities of the facility, you will have to move on to the second stage of your final years.
   
2. Assisted Living facility – These units are primarily about taking care of all your meals and day-to-day living needs, and around the clock nursing care. The apartments are usually small studio size, with a bed and maybe a small kitchenette. They usually have a cafeteria style dining room in a common area or the meals are delivered to your apartment. When this facility is unable to provide you with adequate care you are asked to go to a lifecare facility.
   
3. Lifecare facility – The common name for this facility is a nursing home. The primary purpose is to make you comfortable and as pain free as possible.
   
4. Hospice – This is a place where you might spend the final weeks of your life. It is primarily about making your final days as pain free as possible and in a pleasing environment. That includes several times a day and through the night morphine doses and antianxiety meds.

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The other option you might choose is a CCRC, also known as a “Continuous Care Retirement Community”, or LifePlan Community.

In this type of facility, you don’t have to worry about packing up and moving from one location to another when your health declines as it naturally will. If you join a CCRC, instead of moving to another facility you would simply be moved to a different part of the same community. No serious packing up, signing different contracts, changing addresses. At first thought, a CCRC just made sense to me. But then again, I didn’t realize some of the negatives associated with it.

CCRCs usually don’t really provide a true Independent Living Community atmosphere. There are very little facilities providing active entertainment options. Instead of swimming pools, golf courses and such, they are usually focused on inactive things like Bingo, reading clubs, and arts & crafts, and movie nights.

In 2022, I visited about a dozen CCRCs and independent Living Communities throughout the U.S. Some, like the famous Villages in Florida which is an independent living community made up of primarily standalone houses and limited apartments. They have multiple golf courses, swimming pools, and four massive entertainment complexes., and even a 10,000 sq ft woodworking shop. Their total residents exceed 150,000. Of course, there were dozens of assisted living complexes around the massive community that made the transfer when needed almost painless.

Depending on the makeup, the first two options in a CCRC might really be described as Assisted Living I, and Assisted Living II, particularly if these two are located in the same building, you will essentially be living in a population of residents who mostly depend on mobility vehicles. Sometimes I think there are more mobility vehicles than residents in my CCRC. That can be rather depressing to someone who can still get along without any assistance. It is just a constant reminder of where you will be in the not too distant future. The dining room in my CCRC reminds me of a picture I took at Disney World in 2016, as shown to the right.

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If you want multiple dining options with extended hours, and other such enmities, you should look mostly into independent living communities as your first choice, particularly those that have larger entrance fees. I don’t think there is a chef in existence that dreams of working in an assisted living facility, or even many independent living facilities as a career choice. As a result, many RetComs have a rather large turnover rate among the kitchen staff, those that do stay are mostly doing it to get the experience needed for a different atmosphere. As a result of inexperience, the food is sometimes poorly prepared and not of the best quality.

In closing, I don’t want to discourage you from looking at CCRCs, there are many, such as the one I am living in, that do a good job and have a dedicated staff that really cares. But, you need to ask many questions during your visits to assure getting the place you want. If three years ago, I had had further information, I don’t know if I would have made the choice that I did.

I know I broke my rule of “500 words or less” for this post, but I needed to do that for this particular topic.