Mom (79) is living at home but the neighborhood is rapidly declining. I fear for her safety. Advice?

A senior friendly house, no, but as others have suggested a senior focused Independent Living community, yes, yes, yes.
Aside from the declining real estate values and sketchy neighbourhood your mom needs to be able to get out and socialize with people of her own generation. My own mom stayed on her own after my dad died, and then even after she lost her eyesight. Looking back I think we were negligent in taking the easy route and letting her become so isolated, her QOL could have been so much better. Even if your mom is not a social butterfly there would at least be the opportunity to go out with others occasionally,and senior services would be readily available. If you plan well you could find a community where independent living could transition to assisted living and even beyond to nursing care.

If your mother seemed interested in the idea of moving in principle, I'd take that as the green light to research a few options and set up viewings. Six months since your father's passing - my condolences, and how harsh that he passed at Christmas too - is not long on the scale of a fifty year marriage so don't push her if she proves not to be ready; but on the other hand the long warm days of summer are a good time for optimistic planning and taking action.

Better sooner than later, if you are pretty certain that your mother will eventually need to move away from her current neighbourhood. Better to walk in to a sheltered community than to be wheeled in; better to arrive as an independent, fully-functioning adult personality. So have a look-see, and perhaps you'll come up with an idea she can really take to. The worst that can happen is no change, so how can it hurt to find out what's possible?

Further thoughts....since you're already concerned for her safety, take precautionary measures. Get her a medical pendant if she doesn't already have one, have a security system installed, make sure all the windows have functioning locks, add a lockbox on the exterior of the door next to the door so EMTs or law enforcement can get in if they need to.

Your profile states that your mother has depression. Living in an area that's declining can certainly contribute and/or intensify that. I think the time to start looking is now - but that doesn't mean that she has to consider moving now.

Depending on her ability to live alone, you could check out both senior friendly (I like that term!) houses, retirement villages (be sure to find out about HOAs, monthly association fees, and other fees that might be a part of living in a population specific community), as well as AL and IL facilities.

I would make a chart of good and bad points, including things like the HOA, AL/IL monthly fees and add-ons (and those can push the cost up) as well as standard issues like rent, for comparison, so that you already have your research done before your mother is ready to consider moving.

And this soon after her husband's death is probably too soon, unless she really wants to move on and get out of the neighborhood.

Another factor to investigate is support of the community for seniors. There are two communities in my area that have a much higher level of support for all residents, but especially the senior ones. On the other hand, there are others who don't do anything for seniors other than arrange for expensive trips. Big deal!

Linda22,
i did not know that . ive had suspicions that bill clinton started that $h#t though .
im getting older and im less judgemental than i once was . im ok with bill .
if bill had a girl ( or more ) hanging out under his work desk each day ?
id tell lies too .
whatta you want to hear ?
" uh , i dont recall that previously unreleased statement " ..

Cap'n, the pressure on banks to loosen the rules and lend in low income areas started back in 1995. Now the pendulum has swung the other way and it's so difficult for young buyers to get into that first home without some serious $$ for down payment.

Kinda/sorta. My parents owned their home for 50+ years, too. The neighborhood was just lovely when we grew up there - new subdivision, all home owners, all families - but all these years later, it had been reduced to really trashy properties that were being rented out to some dicey people..... It was still difficult to get my folks to agree to move to an independent living facility - I doubt they would have moved at all if Mom had been able to get up and down stairs anymore.

My thoughts on your situation is that it might be a little too soon for Mom to consider moving - she just lost her life partner six months ago...BUT...I would agree that finding a senior community closer to family that gives your Mom the opportunity to have peer relationships and activities would be great to help her with her healing. We didn't buy the folks another house (their house didn't sell for 3 years after they moved) - we found a facility that had 3 floors of independent living apartments on one side of the huge building and 3 floors of assisted living apartments on the other. In the center of the building were the dining room/kitchen, activity rooms, a movie theatre, a beauty/barber shop, a room with pool table and TV, etc. Folks from age 60 onward lived there and if they became unable to be independent, they simply moved across the building to assisted living.

The place was beautiful and they had maintenance, housekeeping once a week, laundry facilities on each floor, private parking spaces, dances and music programs, Religious services, book reading groups, van service to area shopping and/or doctor's appts and banks, even group trips. The staff kept an eye out on my folks - even called one time when they didn't come down to the dining room 2x straight to see if they were okay. The rent was calculated on the size of the apartment and the number of meals (if any) you ate in the cafeteria - but the apartments did include large kitchens. One of the best parts was that it got them out of that neighborhood (I worried that they'd get burglarized) and Pop didn't have ANY upkeep on the house - no mowing lawns, no cleaning gutters, no unclogging toilets, vacuuming floors, etc. Heck, I wanted to live there!

Your Mom might enjoy the change and the chance to feel independent but not alone. She might feel some relief from home upkeep. Do a little research on what's available in your area and come up with some brochures. Take Mom on a tour or two (they will often offer a free lunch in the diningroom when you're touring) and see how she reacts.

My parents did well there, I think. My mom passed away 4/16/15 - Pop is 90 and none of us live within 1000 miles of their town. If he was younger I would have been okay for him to stay in that apartment...but he was ready to come and live with me - and I am VERY happy to have him.

My condolences on the loss of your father. I hope your Mom finds her bearings.

the neighborhood is declining ? you mean its filling up with uneducated knuckle draggers who have no respect for themselves or anyone else ?
this is exactly what crashed the housing / lending market in 2007 . GWB decided in one fell swoop that making suburban homeowners out of undeserving parasites would make one big , happy , multicultural family out of all of us .
naa .
it just destroyed the property values in the aforementioned suburbs .
i didnt make mention of race because i dont attribute it to race . i used to build block foundations for habitat in my rural area . one particularily frosty morning i was laying block by myself and the scumbag family who was to receive the home finally came by at about 11;30 am . they rolled down the car window about 3 inches just to groove on the progress . i found out later that they were having a habitat home built because they were stressed for living space -- yet had 4 large dogs living indoors with them . ive never worked for habitat since ..
granted it might be because i momentarily lost my s*it , but its all good in the end i s'pose . habitat = self deluded wankers ..
they ask ( insist ) that dirt poor contractors work for s*it so they can , i guess , buy their way into heaven or something .

I would suggest selling the house now if the neighborhood is starting to decline... your Mom wouldn't want to attempt to sell 5 years later if the neighborhood had hit rock bottom.

Your Mom might enjoy living in a senior living complex where there are apartments with one level living, and she would be around people closer to her age group. And have no worries about maintaining a single family home.

As we age, we eventually find our own houses are too much for us to deal with. I use to love doing gardening and out door work... but over the past few years I no longer have the energy to do that anymore... and I swear, my yard feels like it keeps doubling in size every year :P Now I have to pay people to come in to do that work, and the really good ones are not cheap.

If Mom is interested, run with the idea now... as next year she might dig in her heels and not want to move, no way, no how.