Loneliness And Poverty
Single Women Over 65 Suffer Greatly
When I was 23, I rented my first apartment with a friend. That would have been in 1974.
It was a typical high rise apartment building in Ottawa. The rent was a whopping $200 CDN a month for a two-bedroom, single bath apartment.
We could both handle the rent, food, and utilities easily. In fact, I don’t recall any compunction in renting; my income, meager as it was back then, could cover everything and leave plenty left over for partying (of which there was an inordinate amount…).
It was a time when you could make a dollar go a long way. Today, you need lots of dollars and you don’t get far.
Whether renting or buying, people need a substantial income to meet their overhead.
In fact, as Canada heads to a federal election at the end of this month, April, the cost of housing is a major election topic, with all political parties promising to bring back “affordable housing” in some way, shape or form.
While an affordable house might be possible for a married couple with two incomes and no kids, for older adults, it’s a completely different story.
Here are some figures to provide context:
· 68% of older Canadian adults (described as “seniors” by Statistics Canada) who live alone are women
· In the United States, 33% of women over 65 live alone
· The poverty rate for single American women over 65 is 19%
· In Canada, that number is even higher at 25%
Given these stats, what are the chances that a single woman over 65 in poverty can afford to live in a house? Exactly. It’s pretty damn unlikely.
What are governments doing about it? Frankly, next to nothing if anything at all. Another reason to stop waiting for politicians to fix tough problems today.
The power to change this scenario lies with each of us – man or woman – and that’s why there is a growing movement to what is called the “Golden Girls” living arrangement. It’s spreading throughout the U.S. and in Canada, as well.
And it makes sense.
Pat Dunn is a single woman over 65 who lost her husband about 11 years ago to a massive heart attack. She found she was unable to afford her home any longer. That was the motivation she needed to create Single Women Living Together (SWLT).
SWLT is a small but growing organization and its aim is to help single women seeking a living arrangement with other women but also to help them avoid some pitfalls that become obvious only in hindsight.
While the idea of a group of women living together and sharing overhead costs can be a game saver, those pitfalls can show up quickly.
According to Dunn, when a group of women jump into a communal living arrangement, “they’re excited, they seem to get along, they like each other — and a month later, they can’t stand each other.” So she offers a number of suggestions that revolve around a well thought-out living arrangement while highly recommending that women who are initial strangers get to know each other before taking the leap.
While this may seem obvious, it can easily apply to those who are friends, as well. Being friendly – even if it’s a close friendship – is not the same as living together.
As we get older, we become more and more set in our ways, it seems, and that can be a breeding ground for conflict.
However, that aside, the concept of shared living dots a whole lot of ‘I’s and crosses a lot of ‘T’s. It also elevates someone out of a situation for which there may be no viable alternative to reducing poverty.
A shared living arrangement also addresses another enormous issue for older adults who live alone and that’s as an antidote to loneliness.
Study after study has shown that those who live alone, with little to no social connection, are at a higher risk for developing Alzheimer's disease.
At the end of the day, living alone is simply empty of life; there’s nothing to make your feet hit the ground in the morning, nothing to look forward to, nothing to stir the mind.
It’s the next best thing to a death sentence.
So, even though, as Pat Dunn at SWLT points out, it’s extremely important to determine that you can get along with your new roommates before you move in together, the realization that one never needs to live alone, in isolation again, can be a healing thought and one that could snuff out any spats before they occur.
Someone once rescued from an existence of loneliness is not inclined to ever go back.
Living together in a shared arrangement is a perfect example of human resolve solving a uniquely human problem.