https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/senior-community-cost-increase/
Over the last several weeks, the Saint Charles senior living community has become a bit of a ghost town.
A majority of Democratic voters (57%) were ages 50 and older in the 2022 midterms, compared with 51% of Joe Biden’s voters in 2020 and 53% of voters who supported a Democratic House candidate in 2018. Just 14% of Democratic voters were under the age of 30 in 2022 — similar to the 15% of Democratic voters who were in this age group in 2018, but less than their share of Democratic voters in 2020 (17%).
Seven-in-ten Republican voters were 50 and older in the most recent election, compared with 62% of Republican voters in 2020 and 68% in 2018.
All that proves is that old people vote more than young people. Not that a majority of old people vote Democrat.
Those are people who actually voted in the off-year election, not people whos view or registration. https://www.statista.com/statistics/319068/party-identification-in-the-united-states-by-generation/ shows that those in Gen x and above (43 year old an above) Republicans have a ~10% margin over Democrats. Even Pew agrees that Party or Leans-Party favors Republicans in the over 50 group by roughly the same margin https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/06/02/the-changing-composition-of-the-electorate-and-partisan-coalitions/
A 10% margin for the republicans indicates a 45%/55% split in voting. In other words, 45% (!) vote Democrat, making this a huge over-generalization.
thats because 50 is past the middway point for the Xers. If you look at the 65+ band republicans increased over democrats 20 to 22.
Illinois has been voting blue since 1992, the current president is a Democrat, what does this have to do with republicans?
Hahahahahhahahah. Another person that doesn't realize that Chicago votes blue, but almost of the rest of the state is a deep, deep red.
My representative is January 6's Mary "hitler is right" Miller.
But the article specifies chicago area, ie cook county which votes blue
Edited for semantics
Oh yeah. The world famous Chicago County. But never forget to much more famous, New York City County! And don't miss Miami County!
And st Charles isn't in one county, it's in two. Dupage and Kane.
Elderly people without family support are going to end up on the streets en masse because of things like this.
This is already happening in Canada. Even though self assisted suicide is only for those already facing a terrible and unavoidable near death, we have multiple reports of medical staff recommending it for people who can be treated… which doesn’t magically get them on some death list, it just exposes the medical staff for being an apathetic idiot.
Doesn't get them on some death list YET. That kind of callous inhumanity ferments and grows in apathy.
Family Support
The Boomers can have exactly as much family support as they gave to those who came after.
"Your 17. Get the fuck out". "Now I'm poor and elderly, and it's your problem" ay lmao
"we're not being malicious, we're just pumping prices like everyone else regardless of humans. because profits."
"Everybody's doing it. In capitalism, you try to get the highest price you can for a product."
Who, if you don't remember, obtained the manufacturing license for the antiparasitic drug Daraprim and raised its price by 5,455% (from US$13.50 to $750 per pill).
Why y'all so bloodthirsty? These people might not be destitute but they're not billionaires. They planned for a retirement and got it, and now they're getting evicted. They're victims of a cruel system that hurts everyone. Capitalism won't even reward people who "play by the rules", whatever those are supposed to be. Nothing wrong with having empathy. The same boot is stepping on poor people too.
Maybe if people's grandparents with nice retirements are getting evicted somebody will give a shit.
Humans suck. They always have. You can't expect them to do the right thing on their own. There must be laws, and there must be enforcement.
Why isn't the government stepping up to end this kind of greedy practice? Because it's made out of humans and, well....
... humans suck.
Friend, “humans suck” is an easy opinion to hold if you’re already feeling defeated. Things can be better but enough people have to want it. I refuse to give up. I’ll do what I can, even if it’s only voting. Even if it’s just speaking up when people in my IRL life hold half-baked opinions and spread misinformation.
I will have hope, I think you should too.
Don't get me wrong. I'm an eternal hoper and I always do my part.
Yet I can still hold my opinion.
And that was a major red herring anyway. OP asked "why so bloodthirsty?" and the answer is that humans suck.
Sorry, but as a human I have seen the good things we also do. You look like you are surrounded by either humans with toxic personalities, people who are oppressed by capitalism (the rat race), or have some underlying mental issues yourself. Regardless of what the reason may be, please get mental help, and no this isn't in any way a funny pun or an insult to you, I just want you to know that you are loved and with mental help you can see how beautiful people can be (I did).
Please take care random internet stranger.
See how I know that humans suck? You just assumed a whole lot of negative stuff about me, without knowing nothing about me. And I really, really want to think that you're being genuine, but you sound like the "I'll pray for your salvation, you poor lost soul" condescending crowd.
Regardless, that's fine. I made sure that my mental health is well taken care of, I surround myself with beautiful, supportive, well-rounded peeps, and I don't take unimportant things too seriously unless I'm bored.
You too take care, internet stranger.
Landleeches gonna landleech
One of my old landlords did this to me after I reported them to the city for ignoring severe water damage for 2 months. The city sent a health inspector who took one look and said they had to fix it. Landlord showed up with his goon squad to intimidate me, then hit me with a 200% increase.
On the off chance I ever retire I am never going to a retirement community. I will either bother my remaining family with my care or just be found a month later during a wellness checkup, dead on my own kitchen floor after falling.
I don't trust these "communities". I don't trust any "community" that has a buy in.
My plan is to go to a South American country where I can get a living visa to live of the pennies I'll get from my Social Security checks in one of their elderly care facilities.
Is there a difference between retirement community and retirement home? In Spain residences for older people are very popular and nice. I know people living there and they are very happy, better than they would be at home by their own admission.
Sam Zell was doing the same shit in the '00s (and still is) and even in the same area https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2007-05-27-0705260052-story.html this one ended up with my grandmother losing her retirement plans she financing.
There's always scams and they often target those most vulnerable who can't fight back. You'd think there should be some protections or safety nets but gods of capitalism require blood sacrifices
I'm not sure if you read the article, or if your grandma was fabulously wealthy, but everyone involved here is rich as shit.
People like French paid a few hundred thousand dollars upfront to live in the community, then taxes, utilities, and a maintenance fee every month. In recent years, that maintenance fee has risen above $1,300.
"We thought that was outrageous," French said. "Little did we know what was coming."
What was coming was $6,150 a month, a more than 300% increase from new property owner, Jaybird Senior Living.
These are wealthy people who paid hundreds of thousands upfront to a place they still technically rent from. They can easily move, and they absolutely have the money to fight back.
Senior living is often fraught with bullshit but these people are just angry that their gated community got more expensive. They weren't priced out, they were annoyed.
Going by the first sentence of your link, these are two very different situations
The head of Illinois' mobile home owners association, Terry Nelson, is elated.
The homes in the article we're commenting on are quite different from mobile homes.
Same area, st Charles and Elgin are one town apart. It's been a while since I checked but I think $100k-200k would be the average house price in the area. I'm a little closer to the city than those burbs and tiny foreclosures that aren't even up to code can be 200k.
So yeah that might be rich compared to some areas but for this area it's not but all surprising.
This news are actually quite similar. You'll find in both people investing heavily, most of their retirement savings, to establish themselves and then the management company or property owner jacking up the rent to the point where people can no longer live there and have to abandon their investment/retirement fund. Not too complicated of a comparison really.
If $200k is the average house price, now you can begin to see that
A) these are not average houses
B) these people are not struggling, at all, to make ends meet
Because these are very different situations
That's an assumption. 1 these aren't all houses, some of these are small rooms. Looking the place up I've actually been there, some folks end up there for PT or hospice and I can tell you the place aint swank. 2 They could afford the 1.3K monthly fee they expected, sheeeet that's about what I was paying for a one bedroom in the city in not a particularly great area and I didnt have the assisted living aspect that River Glen provides which I assume is the biggest cost. it's not a surprise that they couldn't handle it going up to $6K a month. can you handle your rent going up 300%? Also you gotta keep in mind these are olds. They probably bought their house back forever ago and with housing prices here, and from what it sounds like damn near everywhere, the value of their houses have just been going up like crazy. That doesn't necessarily mean they have money, they probably sold their house or whatever and that's how they managed to get that hefty down payment.
In the end in both scenarios they sunk what they had into a thing that was supposed to last them to the end, the didn't have much left after that and now the terms of the agreement have changed and they can only pray the terms of the agreement don't change further. I get not wanting to side with perceived rich people and prices vary by region. you can feel different about that if you want but they aint all that different of situations
These are retirees who likely have pensions and 401Ks built up over half a century.
If you want to talk about wealthy people, what about the people who likely spent tens of millions of dollars to buy out the community and then jacked up fees by $50k per year overnight? Why can't they be the ones suffering rather than some 95 year old woman who now needs to move and leave everyone she knows behind?
So old people should never have contracts that expire? That doesn't seem like it would benefit the old people much.
Like I just don't understand the outrage. They're inconvenienced and old?
So old people should never have contracts that expire?
Who said that? I was more inferring that old people shouldn't be kicked out of a senior retirement home because some new wealth management firm bought the property and decided to squeeze the juice out of them. What benefit does that have for the rest of society? It's entirely self-serving.
Simply renting property isn't what's happening here, hence the news article and this discussion.
It literally is this. This is a fluff piece that sells because it involves a little old lady. They set contracts that expire and opted not to renew them given the cost. That's the entire story.
My 95 year old mom lives in an assisted living facility. She's in a 1 bed, 2 bath apt with a kitchen and living area. Her utilities and meals are paid for. Her rent is over $6k a month, and she's still fairly independent. She's in her right mind--no dementia at all. She can bathe and dress herself, get herself to the bathroom, get herself into and out of bed, can walk without assistance and handles her own meds.
Once she needs assistance with any of the above, her rent goes up by $1k a month.
She just got a complete health workup, and they gave her a life prediction of 10 years. (Her mom and aunts/uncles all lived to be at least 104.)
Luckily, my dad left her with a sizable amount of money and income from SS and some annuities, but if she does live 10 more years, those annuities will be depleted and so will her savings. She will not be able to afford to stay; SS will never cover her rent.
It keeps me up at night. We are already paying for half my MIL's assisted living. How will we ever afford to help both?
It's terrible to find yourself hoping your mom doesn't outlive her money.
States are different. I have a loved one who lives in a similar situation. A one bedroom apartment with only retired people but the rent is capped at ⅓ monthly income (savings don't count). We can treat our elderly with dignity. We just have to be willing to pay for it and vote for politicians who are willing to enact it. Children, elderly, people with special needs, etc. it frustrates me to no end how we'll just throw them aside so our taxes can be just a little bit lower.
The article makes it sound like someone bought the place and jacked up the monthly maintenance fee by $5000 just because “fuck you.”
Well, given that they bought in under the lump-sum + maintenance model and have somehow been "upgraded" to the rental model, that's exactly what happened. It would be like buying a home and then the old owner coming back and saying, "you know what, I could get more money renting this place - you have to pay rent now." These people likely sold their house and used that money to buy into the community - essentially paying for the right to use the building until they die. It's common in CCRC facilities (continuing care retirement community). You essentially pay for the plant and then pay maintenance, and they guarantee that they will have a spot for you in their care facility as you need more assistance (Independent living -> Assisted Living -> Nursing and/or Memory Care - Hospice). It's much like a reverse mortgage in that you "buy" your "home" and get to live in it until you die, at which point the deed is turned over with your heirs getting nothing. Except that in this case you don't get a monthly payment; instead you pay a fee for the facility services which is free of a rent cost. As you move up in care, the fee gets larger to cover the additional services (additional meals, personal assistance, and ultimately nursing care), but it's just for utilities and services - your payment covers the physical buildings. As you move up, people behind you buy in and that money is used for (CEO bonuses) maintenance and updates to the buildings. Many of these are "non-profits" so the extra money technically isn't for profit, but there are lots of corporate mouths to feed in CCRCs and they find ways to distribute the money.
Uhh... that's EXACTLY what it sounds like? Or are you one of those morons that cannot read between the lines of corpo speak?
"negotiated buyout process" my ass.
The people here never owned their homes. They purchased long-term agreements, and as those agreements expired, the owners moved to a different process.
The "negotiated buyout" is from people ending their leases early.
Okay - you lease a car that includes gasoline and all maintenance. The agreement is that you get to drive it until you die. You pay $80,000 up front for the car and $100/mo for the maintenance, which can increase per the lease. You go along for 4-5 years, and each year your maintenance increases, maybe to $130/mo today, because of the cost of gas and parts needed. You can leave at any time, but if you ever leave or die, you don't get to keep the car - it still technically belongs to the leaseholder. You forfeit the $80k.
Well, the company sold and the new owners can't find enough people with $80k lying around to buy in, so they decided they'll just change the model to include the cost o the car - and charge $650/mo for the service. You get a letter that at your next annual increase, the monthly fee is going to from $130 to $650 because they've changed what constitutes "maintenance" as part of their terms and conditions. You can either stay with the package and pay $650/mo or you can leave and have no money to go find a new car. Oh, and you have no job and are on a fixed income because you're 75 years old.
The agreement is that you get to drive it until you die.
This was not their rental agreement.
A more apt comparison would be that I'm leasing a car, and after my lease expires, the next lease has higher rates.
Well, the company sold and the new owners can’t find enough people with $80k lying around to buy in
This is the opposite of the situation the property owners are in.
It would save you a lot of pointless stress if you read the articles you respond to.
CCRC buy-ins/contracts are for life. I used to design the buildings for them, I still do design work on existing facilities. I've also gone over a contract with my own parents. You essentially pay full price for a residential "unit" and as you require more care you are moved, without additional cost, into a higher care location. The owners than re-"sell" your previous unit to the next resident. When you die, there is no equity that your heirs will receive - in that way it's like a lease. The contract is for life with an annual escalation for maintenance and service.
So... you're just going to pretend like a mortgage and their contract aren't just contracts with large sums of money attached?
Your inability to see this as a problem is hilarious and quite pathetic. Your humanity has been replaced with business speak.
They did not sign a mortgage, because they never one the home. I'd strongly recommend reading the article.
You are missing my entire point in order to be pedantic. I know it's not a mortgage. What part of, "they're both just contracts with a lot of money attached" did you fail to understand?
From the article it sound like there was no maintenance escalation clause limitation - they bought in for, say, $750,000 with a payment of $1000/month in fees, per their contract. Each year the contract maintenance increases (since costs increase) and it had gone up to ~$1300...then, all of a sudden, the owner decided that they weren't getting enough people with $750k to drop up front and added a $6.5k/month option with little or no buy in. When these residents rolled to their annual renewal, instead of the normal 3-6% increase, they were "upgraded" to the new rental-based prices - $6.5k.mo. Their contract is still valid, and they can still stay there, but based on the lawyers these people have gone to about the increase, it's all 100% legal because there is no limit in the contract on how much the fee can increase.
The article makes it sound like someone bought the place and jacked up the monthly maintenance fee by $5000 just because "fuck you."
That's exactly what they did though. It's like buying a lifetime app purchase and then a few months later the app goes subscription based and demand you pay more, except this is people's shelter.
Good and recent episode of freakonomics covers private equity firms
https://open.spotify.com/episode/12j1heah9A4FCTzdkH5OS8?si=CItpqhUWTOWjL80mX4wk-g
From lunch to happy hour, neighbors in the western suburbs love nay excuse to be social, but one group of best friends is breaking up.
If they can't bother to copy edit their lede paragraph, I'm not reading the article.
I've seen so many simple mistakes and misspellings on supposedly serious news websites recently. Are journalists not taught basic writing and proofreading skills anymore?
As I understand it everyone is being paid peanuts to write these days so to make a living they have to churn out a ton of stuff which means attention to detail goes by the wayside
It's not the fault of the writer. It's the fault of the (non existent?) copy editor. When I see a blatant typo in the very first paragraph it makes me doubt the fact checking of the entire article - what else wasn't looked over?
I'm assuming everyone involved in journalism is getting the squeeze these days so I guess same thing applies there too
No time for that as must get the story up for the clicks! Oh, and the pay is pitiful so they are all working a half dozen stories and perhaps ghost writing a book or two just to get by.