Housing for Seniors
     
Your Options for Living

It's Your Time for Life

Your children are grown and have children of their own. Your days in the office have come and gone. The pressures of balancing multiple roles have gradually subsided. Now it is time to enjoy a life of your own.

How you live your life is largely up to you. After considering factors such as your health status, your activity level, and your degree of independence, you have choices relative to where you live, how you live and the services you might want available to you.

Older Adults Have Options about How They Live

Deciding where and how to live is a major decision for anyone. As people grow older, some will continue to live independently with few changes apparent in their daily lives. Others may seek smaller, more maintenance-free or economical living arrangements. Some will require increasing help with personal and domestic tasks.

In recent years, many options have emerged to suit older persons' different housing and health care needs and life-style preferences. Yet older people and their families often do not know that these choices exist. Or they may have an outdated image of dreary "old folks' homes" which is a far cry from today's clean, modern, community environments.

When Should You Start Planning?

Given the options available to you, one factor is essential to your living a happy life into your retirement years -- planning.

Deciding where to live in retirement is a major decision in your life. In addition, it's never too early to begin planning for the time when you might need additional services. The first step, best taken while you are doing well on your own, is simply to acquaint yourself with the many, many different types of assistance available to older adults today. As our population has aged, service organizations have been developed to meet nearly every need imaginable. 


The most important point about planning for your future
is to plan before you are in a crisis. Far too many individuals
wait until their  needs become urgent before they begin
the planning process. At that point, you will not have the time
or the objectivity to gather all the information you need.


Once you begin to consciously look for information about older adult services, you will find their messages everywhere. Upon discovering each new service, try to relate it to your situation. Is this something that could enhance your life?

As is the case with each stage of life, your needs as an older adult are always changing. If you have raised children, you know that just when you seem to have mastered one challenge, another emerges.

We don't talk about these challenges to alarm you, but rather to assure you that you do not have to face these challenges alone. We are here to help you. We can enhance your knowledge and understanding of the many options you have and we can help you access the services you want or need.

Our goal is to help you live the type of life you desire as independently as you can, with the fulfillment you deserve.

Selecting the right living arrangements and the appropriate services is a big job, as most individuals learn soon after they begin. But it doesn't have to be impossible. The secret of finding the options most appropriate for you is relatively straightforward. You need to:

Independent Living

Many older adults find they are happiest living in their own homes, enjoying their independence and being active in their community.

If that is your preference, we want to make that possible. To help you, we can provide you information about the many services available to you. We can help you plan for any services you might need now or in the future, and we will help you access the services you might need on either a temporary or permanent basis.

Continued Education

One of the indicators in any quality of life assessment is on-going education. We are committed to helping you enrich your life by providing you information and opportunities to learn.

We offer educational sessions and informational booklets on a wide range of topics including:



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Go to How to Access Services
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Go to Making the Transition
Go to The Not-for-Profit Choice
Go to a listing of the not-for-profit facilities and services that are members of WAHSA.




Wisconsin Association of Homes and Services for the Aging
204 South Hamilton Street
Madison, WI 53703 USA
Telephone: (608)255-7060
FAX:(608)255-7064