Home Alone

The only way I’m leaving my home is when they carry me out feet first.”

That’s how one 92-year- old woman, a vigorous widow who’s lived alone in a three-bedroom Glendale house since her husband died 35 years ago, puts it.

The sentiment is shared by untold numbers of elderly widows who now live alone--some contentedly, some struggling to cope--in the homes where they raised families.

Many widows choose to stay in their homes after thorough consideration of their options. Others stay put without giving much thought to whether it’s the wisest course. Some think they have no options.

For all of them, managing alone can eventually become overwhelming, especially in a house that may not be adapted to an aging person’s needs.

“The pitfalls of living alone are that it’s lonely and you have a lot of responsibility taking care of the place,” said John Pynoos, a Los Angeles gerontologist who specializes in housing issues. “And the house may not fit your needs anymore; it may be too big.”

The question of where to live out the years after a spouse dies is overwhelmingly a women’s issue.

Of all Americans 65 and older living alone, nearly eight out of 10--78%--were women, according to 1992 figures from the American Assn. of Retired Persons. Only 40% of women 65 and older lived with a spouse, compared with 74% of men in the same age group, the association found.

And according to 1994 Census figures, nationwide, widows older than 65 outnumber widowers older than 65 more than 5 to 1.

“The process of aging is entirely different for women,” said Ann Von Essen, a retirement consultant and housing specialist. “The man has his partner, and his aging takes place in a twosome. Couples fill in for each other’s deficits.”

Experts on aging say there’s no easy answer about whether a widow is better off staying in the family home or whether she should find a living situation that may help her cope with her changing needs and abilities as she ages.

But they agree on one thing: It’s something women need to think about and plan for.

“Most older people say they want to stay in their homes,” said Deborah Chalfie, a senior program specialist with AARP. “But that doesn’t always mean it’s what’s best for them.”

“People have to evaluate what’s important to them when they decide whether to stay where they are: lifestyles, socialization, health care, security,” said Pynoos, a professor at USC’s Andrus Gerontology Center. “Maybe your neighborhood has changed and doesn’t feel comfortable anymore. If your friends have moved or died, if the local stores have been replaced by a WalMart, you can lose that connectedness.”

“A woman needs to look at what she needs that will make life meaningful for her, whether it’s being close to her grandchildren or the symphony hall,” agreed Von Essen, who’s based in Woodside, south of San Francisco. “Does her home allow her to do those things or has it become a burden to her?”

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Growing old alone in a house built for an active family can be difficult, and for strictly practical reasons it might appear that a new widow should look for a situation where she’s not by herself. But that doesn’t take into account emotional factors such as comfort, familiarity and community.

“It’s pretty hard to break up a house,” said 83-year-old Flo Smith, a San Jose widow who lives alone in a nine-room home that she complains is too big for her. “There are so many memories, and there’s so much in it that you’ve collected.”

“A move is a serious uprooting,” Pynoos said. “Most people want to stay where they are.”

Factors that can make staying alone in the home difficult may outweigh the advantages to some widows. Isolation is the threat experts on aging mention over and over. And it can contribute to two life-threatening hazards: poor nutrition and over-medication.

“Isolation is not a good thing,” Von Essen said. “It affects the emotional state and then nutrition, and that can affect your mental state and you get into a downhill spiral.

“Sometimes when a person moves out of a home where she’s become isolated into a retirement home where she gets three meals a day, that can reverse deterioration.”

And for homeowners, household maintenance can become daunting. “It’s very frightening when your husband has taken care of everything and you’re suddenly thrust into the scary world of home maintenance,” said Lisa Brooks, director of development and public relations for Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles.

“When it gets overwhelming, the physical setting can decline around you,” Pynoos warned. “The first thing people start to cut back on is the cosmetics--they stop painting. It gets more serious if it’s the roof or the plumbing.

“Sometimes people get themselves into a really bad situation. They wind up with piles of newspapers, garbage in the yard.”

Pynoos urges widows who want to stay in their homes not to try to struggle alone with cleaning and maintenance, to hire help if it’s financially feasible, asking friends and neighbors for referrals.

The Handy Worker Program offers assistance for low-income senior homeowners in some parts of Los Angeles, providing minor home maintenance services at no charge. The program, part of an agency called PACE and funded by the city of Los Angeles, can help with such repairs as painting and minor plumbing or electrical work.

For other homeowners, finding a competent worker to do maintenance is vital. “The handyman I always used passed away three years ago,” said Berenice Scott, an 80-year-old widow who lives in the West Adams district of Los Angeles. “Since then I’ve hired other people. I’ve had some good experiences and some not so good.”

Still, Scott, a retired administrator for the Los Angeles city schools, finds it worth the work to stay in the home where she’s lived for 40 years.

“I manage to take the garbage out every Monday,” she said. Scott pays a housecleaner to come in occasionally and, when she was laid up with complications after spraining her ankle recently, she hired some extra in-home care. Her long-term-care insurance paid the cost.

Sometimes a shared-housing setup can allow a woman to stay in her house and get help with home care, maintenance and other areas. Possible arrangements include renting a bedroom to another senior, to a younger family member or to a college student. If finances and local building codes permit, adding on or remodeling to create an apartment for a tenant-helper is another possibility.

Janet Witkin, executive director of West Hollywood-based Alternative Living for the Aging, reports many success stories in setting up roommate situations for seniors. Frequently a very elderly person is matched with someone younger, such as a 93-year-old Culver City widow who was paired up with a 66-year-old woman from Poland.

“Often there’s an agreement that the housemate will get free rent or board in exchange for offering some help,” Witkin explained. Alternative Living for the Aging, which serves the entire Los Angeles area, operates five cooperative apartment communities for the low-income elderly: three in the Beverly-Fairfax area, one in West Hollywood, one in Santa Monica. It also serves as a resource for elderly people looking for roommates or homes to share, matching up 25 to 35 people a month, Witkin said.

“Shared housing is a real alternative to living alone or to institutionalization,” she said.

Some widows won’t consider living with someone else. “I couldn’t do it,” said Smith firmly. “I’ve been alone for 19 years. I can eat what I want, get up when I want, walk around wearing what I want.”

A government program called In-Home Support Services, intended to help people who are elderly, blind or disabled stay in their homes, offers financial assistance to qualifying seniors who need in-home caregivers. The combined federal-state-county program may help pay for someone to assist with such domestic tasks as housecleaning and shopping or for a helper to provide personal-care services.

For homeowners who want to stay in their houses but face financial problems, a reverse mortgage is an increasingly popular choice.

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Reverse mortgages are an option for qualifying homeowners with significant equity in their property. With a reverse mortgage, the mortgage company makes monthly payments to the homeowner, rather than the other way around, in exchange for equity in the home. Eventually, the lender may own the larger share of the home.

The drawback is that often the home can’t be passed on to the owner’s heirs. Seniors are also warned to be cautious of scams involving reverse mortgages, especially by private companies that charge huge fees to provide information that can easily be acquired free.

Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles offers consulting that can help widows sort through their finances and plan for the future, including their living situations. There is a fee for the consultations, but advisors don’t work on commission or otherwise have an interest in the advice they give, said Brooks.

“It’s very wise not to wait until everything is in disarray and you can’t handle it,” she said.

What’s the experts’ advice to new widows?

“The first thing we suggest is that people not rush into anything,” said USC’s Pynoos. “I’ve seen a few people get themselves into a serious bind where they’ve sold their house and regret it and can’t go back.”

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Housing Options for Seniors

Retirement housing

* Independent retirement living: Complexes for seniors who can take care of themselves, with a staff doing exterior maintenance.

* Planned retirement communities: Independent living for active seniors, usually younger retirees; strong focus on activities.

* Assisted living: Similar to independent living, with extra care such as call buttons.

* Continuing care and life care: Independent living or assisted living that can evolve into skilled nursing if and when necessary.

Shared housing

* Seniors who own a home can rent or provide rooms to other seniors, or to younger people such as college students or relatives, with the arrangement depending on how much help the senior needs.

* Many seniors move in with a grown child who has room.

* Some senior homeowners add or remodel part of the house into a separate apartment for a housemate or caregiver. Or, conversely, part of a grown child’s house can be made into an apartment for the senior.

* In what’s known as “ecogenic housing,” a group of seniors live together in a shared situation in a home specifically set up for that, rather than one person’s moving into someone else’s home.