This is the second part in a series of articles on elder care. The first article, published Jan. 10, addressed the question of where to begin once the decision has been made to seek out senior housing for an elderly relative or friend. In this segment, we survey and compare the senior housing options available on Mercer Island, where they thrive and where they fall short.
When Covenant Shores was built in 1978, it had everything covered. The all-encompassing Mercer Island retirement community, which cared for seniors from the most active to those who couldn’t remember their names, could be the first and final stop on the continuum of care a person in the later stages of life might need.
The sprawling 12-acre campus on the Island’s north end still supports the spectrum of needs, but as senior housing options diversify to respond to a more demanding clientele, the Island’s oldest senior home now has plenty of company.
This is a good thing, said Betsy Zuber, a geriatric care specialist for Mercer Island Youth & Family Services and a frequent Reporter contributor. Here on the Island, we have a microcosm that represents the full range of options available. The only problem — particularly when cost is a concern — is space.
At Covenant Shores, most of the 300 available units are often full. Time on the waiting list can stretch from less than one year to more than five, especially for the larger apartments. And this is not a common destination for seniors with financial concerns: The entrance fee for a small one-bedroom starts at $97,500; with assisted living fees it can top out at more than $5,000 per month.
“Most people (on Mercer Island) either have money or can get their children to pay for it,” said Liz Gibson, manager of Ellsworth House, the only federally subsidized senior housing facility on Mercer Island.
For those who want to remain on the Island but have less money available, Ellsworth House may be the only option. Qualifying residents of the 59-unit independent-living facility pay one-third of their income toward their housing cost. The waiting list at Ellsworth House is currently 11 years long.
“It’s a huge challenge everywhere in Seattle,” Gibson said. “Everywhere you call that has HUD (Housing and Urban Development) housing has a three- to 10-year waiting list. If they’re all full, then I don’t know what you do. You’re between a rock and a hard place.”
Medicaid can help pay for housing costs for seniors who qualify. But not all facilities accept Medicaid, and those that do might only accept it for a certain number of units or on a case-by-case basis.
Twilight Adult Family Homes is one of the rare residences that takes Medicaid without limitation. “We like to help people,” said owner Savita Bengai. She and her husband, Anil, own and operate three homes on the Island. Each property is an unmarked home with a capacity of five residents; a 24-hour caregiver lives at each site to cook customized meals and provide care from the basic level to dementia and end of life.
Twilight homes, which blend into the neighborhood with no signage whatsoever, represent a growing trend in senior housing: the desire to be in a less conspicuous, less institutional environment with more personalized care.
“It’s a good alternative in senior housing,” said Chelsea Nov, who runs another couple-owned and operated adult family home on the Island’s south end. “It’s a different concept than a nursing home. It’s more of a family-like setting,” she said.
Caregivers at Nov Adult Family Homes cook residents the meals they want when they want them, take them on outings, bring them the papers they like to read and have an open-door policy to family members with no specified visiting hours.
“For the families, it’s their home too. We’re really open to people just being able to come, walk in and have dinner if they want,” Nov said. She and her husband, Addy, are in the process of opening their second facility on the Island, a north-end house with room for four.
Still, while some facilities aim to blend in, other recent additions to the Island’s senior housing landscape are impossible to ignore. Aljoya, slated to open in early 2008, promises a new level of luxury in senior living. It will have 112 independent and assisted living units, 105 underground parking spaces, personalized interior design, a business center with Internet access, a theater, auditorium, day spa, massage studio and saltwater swimming pool.
Terry Moreman, president of the Mercer Island Chamber of Commerce, said that type of living has great appeal to many elderly Islanders who aren’t necessarily seeking housing in response to a health crisis, but are simply looking to downsize their living spaces and simplify their lives. The recent growth of the Town Center and the conveniences it provides makes a centrally located facility such as Aljoya all the more appealing.
A result of that mentality has been an unexpected wave of interest from older Island residents in the new downtown apartment buildings.
“It’s a lot of seniors who are not quite ready to go into assisted living, said Helen Martin, the real estate broker for the Avellino Apartments on 78th Ave. S.E. She even had an inquiry from a wonan who did need extra help and wanted to move in with her caretaker.
“A lot of these people have lived on the Island a long time. They know the shopkeepers and the shopkeepers know them,” Moreman said. “That’s part of what makes this place special. People have invested a lot of themselves in it and they don’t want to just walk away.”
One of the main concerns for senior advocates such as Zuber is that walking away might be the only choice. If there isn’t a vacancy in the particular facility that suits an individual’s care needs and financial situation, they are often forced to look farther and farther away, isolating them from their families or loved ones on the Island. “If you have lived on Mercer Island all your life, would you want to move to Tacoma or Bremerton?” Zuber said.
In lieu of institutional possibilities, Zuber urges seniors and their families to get creative. Depending on their abilities, they might help someone out with childcare or other light work in exchange for boarding in a mother-in-law apartment. Connections and other assistance can often be made at the community level, through friends, neighbors, churches or synagogues.
Accessing these channels can offer temporary solutions, but Zuber said it doesn’t address the real problem. “I think what it really says is, we need more housing.”
Correction
In the previous story on senior housing in the Mercer Island Reporter on Jan. 10, Eve Stern was mistakenly identified as co-president of SnapforSeniors. Stern is the sole president, while Derek Preston is chief executive officer. The Reporter regrets the error.