Observers of American culture certainly give credit to the baby boomers for the way their ideas shaped America - both politically and culturally. Today, as tens of millions of baby boomers approach retirement age, it certainly looks as if they may change the way America has always lived in retirement too. So far, the only innovation in retirement communities that we've seen has been the idea of a place that offers continuing care. Baby boomers are bringing all kinds of new twists on this theme and coming up with new ones as well. The landscape of how to retire in America has changed.
Consider for instance, how retirement community planners build cohousing communities these days. This is where they build a retirement community out of individual houses in a compound (instead of apartments in a block). Another innovative approach involves the building of a retirement community right next to a university campus. These university communities are going to redefine how to retire in the future - they are for people who wish to sign up for university courses after they retire and make learning the center of their entire retirement existence. Continuing care retirement communities are extremely popular too. Let's look a little closer at these.
Let's start with a closer look at the University retirement community. This one is a true step forward in learning how to retire. Remember the time when retirees considered themselves very lucky to have a retirement community that had a golf course or that was next to a beach? To retirees today, the idea of vegging out permanently on the beach seems like giving up on life. What they want is the life and energy there is in going back to the life of a teen - going back to a life of learning and growing. A University-based retirement community is built close to a University; and there is some kind of an arrangement in place. Such a retirement community does offer all the healthcare that its residents require. But at its core, it is about learning. And it works both ways too. There are times when regular young students at the University visit the retirement community for an internship of some kind. And since these retirees are people who have a wealth of knowledge and experience, having lived and worked all their lives, there is quite a bit they are able to bring to the University as well. Young kids there are able to learn quite a bit from their experienced classmates. A spot in a University-based retirement community runs from anywhere between $200,000 to $500,000 - with recurring monthly costs of about $2500.
Have you ever asked yourself why you need to go live in a continuing care retirement community just for the services and amenities that they allow you? Why can't you live where you are and have those services brought to you? They call them CCRCs without walls. You live wherever you always have, and the administrators of the retirement community, who forge relationships with all the retirees in the entire neighborhood, bring any healthcare requirements you may have right your home; and they accompany you to wherever in town you wish to be taken. It happens to a very affordable arrangement that you need to pay about $50,000 to enroll into and $500 a month.
