The Senior Resource Center for Douglas County can help with many aspects of planning for retirement, but the key is to start early.
| 2018 Q2 | story by Dr. Mike Anderson | photos by Steven Hertzog
It’s not too brash to say many of us live in a state of denial when it comes to aging. People aren’t keen to talk about it, and many certainly don’t want to plan for it. Perhaps if we avoid talking about it, it won’t happen.
As a kid, I always wanted to stay up late. I found that if I just sat quietly on the couch in our TV room, my dad wouldn’t notice it was bedtime. I could then squeeze in a few more minutes of “The Tonight Show” before he’d realize I was still up. Unfortunately, that rouse doesn’t work on father time.
Dennis Domer
Perhaps former KU professor Dennis Domer says it best, “If you avoided math your whole life then had to take it, it’s a shocking thing.” He says far too many seniors pretend they are still 35 and go it alone. They have been programmed their whole lives to avoid talking about aging and have been taught that it’s an insult. But it’s not just important to plan early for your future; it’s vital. Luckily, there are people out there who are really good at math and can help.
The Senior Resource Center of Douglas County (SRC) is a 501 C3 aimed at helping individuals plan for the second half of their lives. SRC has experts on almost any subject relevant to seniors. It has the resources to put people in the right places in front of the right people on just about any question. Executive director Marvel Williamson explains, “Think of us first as your go-to place when you need guidance and information … and ask early.” Williamson and others at the Senior Resource Center aim to help anyone with plans for aging.
Domer, also the project director of the New Cities Initiative and former board member of the SRC, says the biggest obstacle for the SRC in the future is helping people, not just seniors, prepare financially for retirement. The problem is most generations, not just seniors, aren’t preparing. Domer explains that less than half of seniors have pensions, and most don’t have any 401(k) or any financial system put toward retirement. “Financial stability is the 800-pound elephant in the room,” he says. “Seniors aren’t saving. Housing and health is a major financial burden. People are living longer, and many don’t have the resources to keep up with the same level of spending they are used to.”
This is why Williamson and her staff want seniors to contact them now rather than later. “It’s not a conversation that many people want to have. People tend to put this off,” Williamson says. “But it’s important to think about living options and making accommodations in advance.”
The Senior Resource Center for Douglas County educates and advises seniors on a variety of factors, such as where to live and what to do with Medicare options, insurance options, power of attorney and legal issues, who can take care of bookkeeping functions such as a will. Every year, there will be newly retired people who don’t know what to do. Every year, SRC has a new freshman class, and it must educate them. “You can’t go to the yellow pages for a lot of these answers. People come here to get an objective opinion,” Williamson explains.
Marvel Williamson
The SRC wants to help seniors be proactive. What happens when loss of function or ability arises? How do you get around? What transportation options are out there? It helps with more than just the “big” stuff. It also educates and assists with the small things, such as finding bridge club or the golf courses that offer senior discounts, or advising on better nutrition options. The SRC provides free legal aid and will even have its seniors’ taxes done for free. It offers veterans assistance. It delivers meals directly to homes (about 130 a day). It offers a transportation program that includes nine vehicles, which makes sense considering most Uber cars can’t accommodate wheelchairs. The topic of who is responsible for sidewalk repair and maintenance has been a heated topic at City Hall recently. The SRC offers safe winter walkways where volunteers will shovel snow off seniors’ sidewalks. It can help seniors join its clubs, choir or band. Its yoga class, which is held at the Lawrence Public Library, is very popular.
The SRC is a resource in every part of the word. The most recent issue of its newsletter, –Better Senior Living–, is filled with information on activities, performances and classes. There are also articles on utility scams, social security benefits, physical exercise and even heartburn during sex. At the end of the newsletter, there is a recipe for a delicious rhubarb strawberry crunch. In just 23 pages, I learned a lot about the future of my mind and my body. And I learned how much I love rhubarb.
In 2012, the SRC was given the responsibility of a five-year reinvent retirement campaign. The results have been a success. According to the U.S. Census and the Internal Revenue Service, the growth of 60-year-olds and older in Douglas County outpaces every other county in Kansas. The center has a full-time staff of 11, a part-time staff of 10 and a volunteer workforce of 300 people. One of those volunteers, Nancy, has been a backup driver since 2000. Nancy also plays pickleball at the Sports Pavilion five days a week. She doesn’t understand why everyone doesn’t utilize the SRC. “It’s the best place for seniors to get multiple types of help,” she says. Apparently, it was also where the Lawrence pickleball boom may have gotten its start.
In 2007, Nancy and some other volunteers played upstairs in the old Douglas County Senior Services center downtown. There, they would tie nets to stacked chairs and hit the ball, not even knowing the rules. Now the sport in Lawrence, especially within the senior community, has grown rapidly. Evan Jorn is the official/unofficial pickleball ambassador of Lawrence. He estimates he has 430 names on his pickleball e-mail list.
It just so happens Evan Jorn is another volunteer. From Oct. 15 through Dec. 7, Evan does one-on-one consulting with seniors about Medicare Part D. “People come every year,” Evan notes. “I’ve seen some people save thousands of dollars on their medication.” Speaking of thousands, that’s how many people the SRC helps in a year. To give you an idea of its volume, during the roughly six weeks of the year for Medicare open-enrollment time, 1,000 individuals walk through the doors of the Senior Resource Center for guidance, not including all the phone calls it receives.
Seniors desire both intergenerational activities, such as pickleball, as well as intergenerational living. Most retired people don’t really favor age-segregated living. They want to use technology, and they want a learning community. These aspects are what make college towns so appealing to those going through their second half of life. Williamson explains that being a college town is part of the criteria on any senior’s wish list for places to retire. “Colleges in the Midwest tend to be not huge cities but have enough of a population to have amenities,” she says. As a college town, Lawrence has the three things seniors want: 1) Culture: Lawrence offers the cultural opportunities that seniors crave. The city offers music, bookstores, food, movie theaters and a variety of stores and opportunities to engage in a diverse array of consumer activities. “Walk into an Apple store,” Domer says. “It’s full of older people trying to figure out their iPhones.” 2) Public transportation: Many seniors can’t drive or won’t be able to drive in the near future. 3) Activities: “An engaged social life is perhaps the single most important thing a senior can do,” Domer argues.
And college towns offer many opportunities to be social, including concerts, sporting events and, most importantly, classes. As novel as it sounds, part of the mission of the Senior Resource Center is to help seniors find their classrooms. Here, they don’t exactly have to worry about the kind of senioritis that plagues a different kind of senior. If you are over 60 and meet certain visiting student requirements, you can enroll for classes at the University of Kansas for free. Seniors can also participate in Osher Lifelong Learning Institute-sponsored three-day courses in the summer. Seniors theorize they need to do things to keep themselves busy but to also keep their wits about them—to keep them thinking. Learning in these platforms is a social endeavor that can help build social connections and ward off isolation. The American Council on Education claims half of college students 50 and older attend colleges to connect with other people, have fun and/or retool for a new career.
When it comes to Lawrence as a destination for seniors, SRC director Williamson has done her homework. She and her husband spent 10 years of their life deciding where to spend the second half of their lives. They visited and vetted close to a dozen college towns in the Midwest. After 10 years of researching (while living in Ireland), they narrowed it down to the Top 3: Lawrence, Iowa City and Columbia. Naturally, they decided on Lawrence. She acknowledges that 10 years is a lot, but she and her staff very much want to stress how important it is to plan for the second half of life. The Senior Resource Center for Douglas County addresses a whole array of human endeavors to help seniors plan. And while planning for retirement may be tough to think about, at least we get to do it in Lawrence. Sorry, Iowa City and Columbia, I’m looking for someone a little more wise and distinguished.
Sports Pavilion Lawrence