Tag Archives: retirement communities

Floridians evacuate and grumble as Hurricane Dorian slowly nears

Elderly citizens from an assisted living community board a bus after a mandatory evacuation order ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Dorian in Kissimmee, Florida, U.S. September 2, 2019. REUTERS/Gregg Newton

By Gabriella Borter and Zachary Fagenson

KISSIMMEE, Fla. (Reuters) -At a retirement community in central Florida, elderly residents waited for a bus on Monday to evacuate to a shelter as one of the most monstrous Atlantic hurricanes on record crawled toward the state.

Mary McNiff, 92, sat in her wheelchair waiting to board at the Good Samaritan Society in Kissimmee, near Orlando, one of more than a million people under evacuation orders along the U.S. East Coast on the Labor Day holiday.

Elderly citizens from an assisted living community board a bus after a mandatory evacuation order ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Dorian in Kissimmee, Florida, U.S. September 2, 2019. REUTERS/Gregg Newton

Elderly citizens from an assisted living community board a bus after a mandatory evacuation order ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Dorian in Kissimmee, Florida, U.S. September 2, 2019. REUTERS/Gregg Newton

“Kind of anxious to get it over with,” she said before a rare trip off the property. “I haven’t been out for two years really with this leg,” she said, pointing to a cast on her left leg that she has been wearing since she had complications with a blood clot.

Hurricane Dorian was still miles out to sea, squatting over the Bahamas where it had already destroyed homes with maximum sustained winds of 155 miles per hour (249 kph). Forecasters warned it could still be dangerous as it drew closer to Florida even if its eye did not make landfall in the state.

The National Weather Service warned of hurricane-strength winds, several feet of storm surges and the risk of dangerous flash floods along much of the Florida coastline in the coming days.

Sue Watson, one of McNiff’s neighbors, was reluctant to move from the place she has called home for 14 years.

“I was all set to stay home until they had to turn the water off,” she said as she waited for the bus to pull out. She was not afraid, she said. “God knows what he’s doing and he’s in control.”

Another Florida resident, Randy Hightower, 71, evacuated from his mobile home in Daytona Beach to the Volusia County Fair Grounds shelter on Monday with his wife and dog. He called himself “an old Florida cracker” and said: “I’m more scared of this one than I’ve ever been of one in Florida before.”

MANDATORY EVACUATIONS

Nine counties in Florida have ordered mandatory evacuations, while seven counties have voluntarily evacuations. Farther north, officials in coastal South Carolina and Georgia ordered hundreds of thousands of people to leave their homes for shelter.

On what would have usually been a bustling Labor Day holiday, historic downtown St. Augustine was instead filled with the sound of power saws, drills and hammers as bay-front businesses fortified themselves against impending winds and flooding.

It is the third storm Joy Warren and her husband, Andrew, have weathered since buying their 16-bedroom waterfront bed and breakfast more than a decade ago.

“I don’t know how many hurricanes it’s been through,” she said. “It’s still here. I love it. I’m going to get in as soon as I can. If it’s trashed, I’ll rebuild again.”

The Pedro Menendez High School in St. Augustine has been converted into a shelter with space for 500 people. Lee Franco headed inside clutching a pillow and a box of tissues. She had only moved to Florida six months ago but felt prepared.

“Because I was following the news, I knew what I needed, so we have sleeping bags, our papers and everything we need,” she said. “It’s so boring there, there’s nothing to do. You read and play with the telephone and that’s it.”

Steven Apuzzi, 49, was hoping he and his three children would get in. His family has been homeless and arrived at the shelter in a gray Dodge caravan in which they have been sleeping.

“I’m going through it,” he said, describing the problems a single father faces getting access to shelter. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get into this shelter. I’m hoping and praying.”

The shelter eventually let him in and he called it a blessing. Once the hurricane passed, he was not sure where the family would head next.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter in Kissimmee and Zachary Fagenson in St. Augustine; Writing by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Bill Tarrant, Nick Zieminski and Peter Cooney)

Four ways to prevent loneliness from wrecking your retirement

A couple walks down the street in the Tverskaya district of Moscow August 17, 2013. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

By Chris Taylor

NEW YORK (Reuters) – When Monica Dwyer of West Chester, Ohio thinks of retirement, her mind wanders to her family friend Paul.

Paul had a wife and kids, and a good job at Procter & Gamble. But his wife died 15 years before he did, and, over time, his social circles started shrinking, along with his finances.

Eventually, Paul “barely had money to eat,” Dwyer said. He kept his thermostat at 55 Fahrenheit (13 Celsius), even in frigid Ohio winters. He could not drive, surviving on $1 McDonald’s hamburgers, and was alienated from his children, before he died.

“He was a forgotten soul,” Dwyer said.

You might not hear of stories like Paul’s very often, but they are out there. A study https://www.cigna.com/newsroom/news-releases/2018/new-cigna-study-reveals-loneliness-at-epidemic-levels-in-america released last month by health services company Cigna found that nearly half of Americans report feeling lonely sometimes or always, which the study concluded is a national “epidemic.”

“We had been hearing from customers that they are feeling more disconnected and lonely, so we wanted to do some research to understand the state of loneliness across the U.S.,” said Dr. Doug Nemecek, Cigna’s chief medical officer for behavioral health. “What we found was astounding.”

The emotional impact of loneliness in retirement is obvious – feelings of being isolated and misunderstood, with social interactions that lack meaning. But loneliness turns out to have financial ramifications as well.

Take healthcare costs, for instance. “People who feel lonely are less healthy,” Nemecek said. “There are many studies linking loneliness to worsening heart disease, cancer, diabetes, depression and substance abuse. In fact, healthwise, loneliness is comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.”

If you are strategic and determined, there are multiple defenses against social isolation as you get older. Here are four tips from financial planners.

MOVE TO A RETIREMENT COMMUNITY

Society likes to poke fun at retiree developments, like the elder Seinfelds buying their condo in Del Boca Vista. But at larger senior communities like The Villages and Sun City Center, both in Florida, “you could participate in a group activity nearly every hour of every day,” said Holly Donaldson, a financial planner in Seminole, Florida.

Retirement communities are a powerful alternative to retiring “in place” in your own home. Staying in your home may initially sound appealing because of the comfort level with your surroundings, but it could eventually leave you very alone indeed, especially if you are struggling with physical disability.

KEEP WORKING

If you enjoy working, and your employer does not have any mandated retirement age, then by all means keep showing up at the office. The first benefit is cognitive, keeping you alert and active and maintaining that social circle in the workplace.

The second benefit is financial: Just a couple of years of additional work means you are actively building up your 401(k) assets, not drawing anything down, and boosting your Social Security payments by delaying taking them. That alone is enough to create a robust retirement outlook.

VOLUNTEER

Volunteers live longer, have lower levels of disability and higher levels of well-being, according to data analysis by the Corporation for National & Community Service (CNCS), a federal agency. One surprising fact: volunteerism has a greater impact on well-being than other factors like income, education or marriage.

Volunteering also assembles a new social circle to hold you up in dark times. Intuitively, many seniors know this already: More than 21 million older Americans provide 3.3 billion hours of service every year, according to the CNCS.

CREATE SOCIAL CHECKS AND BALANCES

Retirees are highly susceptible to financial abuse, thanks to social isolation. The losses amount to an estimated $36.5 billion every year to fraud, scams and exploitation, according to a study by True Link Financial, a financial services company aimed at retirees, with the vast majority of financial abuse not even being reported.

The sad fact is that 90 percent of financial abuse comes at the hands of someone in a position of trust, like a family member, according to the non-profit National Adult Protective Services Association.

The best way to defend against being at the mercy of one person is by having multiple people in your corner. If you have church friends, childhood friends, extended family and volunteering friends – all looking out for you – it will be less likely you will be taken advantage of.

“I always recommend having duplicate financial statements sent to someone you trust,” advises Brett Anderson, a planner with St. Croix Advisors in Hudson, Wisconsin.

(Editing by Lauren Young and Frances Kerry)