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I know this would be better posted on a housing-contractors' or property developers' forum but you can't post on any of their forums without a license--I have posted it on a realtors' forum--so here goes with putting it here & if anyone on here is able to & feels so inclined to pass it on to any contractors or property developers, that'd be great.


There need to be more housing tracts/subdivisions built with the elderly in mind. In my area & I think most areas, the housing for the elderly consists of mobile home parks--which my husband for one would never agree to live in & it's true that with the 9 mo. of summer we get around here, it's like living in a metal & glass box plus you don't get much of a yard--or apartments in senior housing complexes or condos. (A few of the complexes have detached cottages but they're not very big.) And the space rent for both the MH parks & complexes and the Homeowners Assn. fees for the condos keep going up, up, up and none of those places usually offer a garage, usually just a carport if you're lucky.


You might get lucky & find that cute little "4-leaf clover" house (one that's just big enough, just a big enough yard, a garage & in a good enough neighborhood that you won't have to worry about lowlifes), but around here? Expensive as all get-out & all the realtors around here have lonnnnng waiting lists for houses like that; when/if they do get a house like that, they don't even have to advertise; all they do is list it & start calling the names on their waiting list & usually have a sale just a couple days later.


So they finally built a new housing tract in our town that they said would be a "new but old-fashioned" kind of tract: not-big but not-tiny, row houses with garages around a nice common area where you have a cute little back yard & people nearby enough you could get to know & maybe even get help from your neighbors if need be (which is what the elderly need) like the good-old-days small-town living. Sounds great, right? Wrong. They built all the houses 2-story. So they might as well have put a sign up, "Not For Any of You Old Folks; Young Stair-Climbers Only."


So it would be smart & the decent thing to do for more developers to build tracts with old-fashioned housing as described in the paragraph above but ONE-story since not all of us elderly can afford or want to live in mobile homes or apartments or condos or a room in their kids' house (if they've even got any kids; not all of us do). I think you developers are missing out on a real opportunity with this with the amount of us elderly baby boomers.

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Mally, , we have just started the process of selling our house. Based on not making any profit on this house, I am hopeful we can find another that isn’t the size of a matchbox and will fit all the durable medical equipment I have for my husband. I’ve told our realtor, whom I don’t really like( she has no personality and seems to think I am lazy and unmotivated), that rehoming our animals is not an option. At this point, to answer your question, I have no idea where we will be going. Someplace we can afford that will allow me to pay our bills and get out from under this black cloud, I hope!
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Ahmijoy, so what kind of place are you moving to? Will you have to give up your animals? I just hate this....
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The low income housing issue is a rough one. There should be better solutions but they're   almost non-existent. The county's where I live in Maine has lots of subsided apartments for seniors that are very nice, but nothing with garages or that accept pets. For single person they are nice, but way to small for a couple. One of the buildings in my town has beautiful river views, nice dining room and recreation area, but definitely too small for a couple.
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From your “fingers” to God’s Eyes. Especially for low and practically no income seniors like my husband and me. We don’t “make” enough to live on but we “make” too much to qualify for much aid. Any extra expenses we have sink us and we are now on the edge of bankruptcy. Section 8 subsidized housing would cost us as much in rent as the mortgage on a small house. And, I’d have to rehome my animals. We are in the planning stages of moving. Our house will probably have to be sold “as is” because as the lone and full-time caregiver for my husband, I have neither the health nor the financial wherewithal to invest money to basically put “lipstick on a pig”.

We have no other options. There is no help. And, there should be.
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Thanks for the replies, all. I figured why this kind of housing is scarce is because of $$; that's usually the reason for most problems that don't get taken care of, sigh.
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I worked for a developer in Ohio while I was going to graduate school. They get these type of requests frequently. Generally, it's a matter of cost. Developers need to generate so much profit per square foot of real estate purchased. Small one-story homes do not generate the money they need to make a profit. Raw land costs go up every year. Metro land, if affordable is generally not in areas that are desirable. In planning meetings, these type of ideas are thrown out for discussion frequently, but rarely are they feasible. One other obstacle is the question of resale. In order to have covenants in deeds designating it as a senior development for those over a certain age, you have to have a homeowner's association and that means fees. One also has to have any common areas maintained, street lights paid, curb maintenance. If the entrance is onto a road a stoplight is required, then the developer has to pay for that. Costs can quickly escalate, as well as the Homeowner Association fees charged.
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The popular thing here for those downsizing are single story townhouses/row houses.
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There is a very small area in my small town that I believe was set up by the lutheren church. Small cottage type houses with a "senior center" type building in the center. I only found it because I went to a craft fair there once. Very small yards, but some green space.
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