 |
|
|
|||||
Sometimes it’s a fall that brings a broken hip and a loss of mobility. Or memory problems that bubble into danger. Or the death of the partner who was relied upon for care.The need to move to a nursing home, assisted living facility or another type of care setting often comes suddenly, setting off an abrupt, daunting search. It’s likely something no one ever wanted, but knowing what to look for and what to ask can make a big difference.What to do when looking for a long-term care facility: Start with government ratings Regulation of assisted living facilities varies greatly from state to state, meaning there’s no centralized standards or source for information. If you’re looking for a nursing home, though, they are monitored by the federal government.The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services maintains records on nursing homes, including data on who owns the facility, how robust its staffing is and what types of violations it might have been fined for. It assigns homes a star rating, from one to five.Sam Brooks, director of public policy for the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, says while the star rating “can be notoriously unreliable,” due to its reliance on self-reported data, it can still provide some clues about a home.“One or two stars, expect it to be bad,” Brooks says.Ratings can be a resource to rule out the worst options, but not necessarily to find the best. Still, Brooks suggests taking a closer look at four- and five-star facilities and to consider a home’s ownership, too. Nonprofit homes are often better staffed.You could scour inspection reports and online reviews for clues, too, but eventually you’ll need to make a list of potential candidates and start making visits.“The data,” Brooks says, “only goes so far.” Look past the lobby When visiting a home on your list, be careful not to be too swayed by decorative touches that might be designed to lure you in, like a lobby’s furniture, dangling chandeliers or vases of flowers.“When I tour a building, I listen first. Is it loud? Are call bells ringing nonstop?” says Mark Sanchez, CEO of United Hebrew, a nursing home in New Rochelle, New York.After that, Sanchez says, switch your senses. Do you detect an odor? Do you see residents clustered around the nurses’ station, perhaps clamoring for help? Are staffers speaking respectfully to residents? Are they making eye contact? Are they rushed?“Culture shows up in small moments,” Sanchez says, “and it matters.”Seeking input from families of current residents can be insightful. Another resource may be your local long-term care ombudsman. Ombudsmen, funded by the federal Older Americans Act and present in every state, investigate long-term care residents’ complaints.With all the available information on each home, it can be easy to feel like you’re drowning in data. So pay attention to how a place feels, too, and pair that with concrete facts.When Jennifer Fink was making the “stressful, grief-inducing, hard and scary” decision on what memory care community was right for her mother, she didn’t consult state databases or Google ratings. She went with her gut reaction and luckily, it was right.“Trust your gut. Keep top of mind that the salesperson wants your loved one’s money,” says Fink, of Auburn, California. “If it’s giving you the ‘ick,’ then move on.” Staffing matters most More than any other single thing, experts on long-term care stress that a facility’s staffing is most important. That means both the quality of the care you witness workers giving residents during your visit and the average staffing levels shown in the reported data.A home providing an average of three hours of nursing care to each resident each day may not look all that different on paper from one providing three-and-a-half hours. But those minutes matter dearly, meaning the difference between a person getting a shower, having help at mealtime, or being discovered if they’ve fallen.During a visit, pay attention to how quickly call bells are answered and whether it seems like residents are engaged in activities. Ask staff how long they’ve worked there. A home that holds on to its workers for years may offer your loved one more continuity.Evan Farr, an elder law attorney in Lorton, Virginia, who wrote “The Nursing Home Survival Guide,” says visiting a facility at night or on the weekend can be particularly revealing.“These are the times when staffing is reduced and the true operation of the facility becomes apparent,” Farr says. “It is entirely possible to have a five-star rated facility that is woefully under-staffed from 5 p.m. Friday until 8 a.m. Monday morning.” Keep a long-range view When faced with an urgent decision, it can be difficult to focus on anything beyond the factors in front of you. But it’s important to choose a home with a long-range view.At the start, many long-term care residents are able to pay for the cost of their bill. But what happens if their money runs out? If it’s a nursing home that accepts Medicaid, how many beds are allocated to such residents? Would your loved one get that slot? If it’s an assisted living facility, do they even accept people on Medicaid?Assisted living facilities often have complicated billing structures that require a bevy of questions to understand. Ask how costs may change as a person’s needs increase. Some places tack on separate charges for tasks like helping a person to the bathroom.“Four-thousand dollars a month can become $8,000 overnight,” says Geoff Hoatson, founder of the elder law practice Family First Firm in Winter Park, Florida.Another fact of long-term care that few understand is how often facilities seek to remove residents seen as undesirable, often due to a change in their financial circumstances or in their health. Dementia patients in particular with challenging care needs and symptoms that can sometimes bring aggression are targeted with orders to leave.“Ask specifically what conditions would require transfer,” Hoatson says. Matt Sedensky can be reached at msedensky@ap.org and https://x.com/sedensky Matt Sedensky, AP National Writer
Category:
E-Commerce
President Donald Trump wants to keep home prices high, bypassing calls to ramp up construction so people can afford what has been a ticket to the middle class.Trump has instead argued for protecting existing owners who have watched the values of their homes climb. It’s a position that flies in the face of what many economists, the real estate industry, local officials and apartment dwellers say is needed to fix a big chunk of America’s affordability problem.“I don’t want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up for people that own their homes, and they can be assured that’s what’s going to happen,” Trump told his Cabinet on Jan. 29.That approach could bolster the Republican president’s standing with older voters, a group that over time has been more likely to vote in midterm elections. Those races in November will determine whether Trump’s party can retain control of the House and Senate.“You have a lot of people that have become wealthy in the last year because their house value has gone up,” Trump said. “And you know, when you get the housing when you make it too easy and too cheap to buy houses those values come down.”But by catering to older baby boomers on housing, Trump risks alienating the younger voters who expanded his coalition in 2024 and helped him win a second term, and he could wade into a “generational war” in the midterms, said Brent Buchanan, whose polling firm Cygnal advises Republicans.“The under-40 group is the most important right now they are the ones who put Trump in the White House,” Buchanan said. “Their desire to show up in an election or not is going to make the difference in this election. If they feel that Donald Trump is taking care of the boomers at their expense, that is going to hurt Republicans.” The logic in appealing to older voters In the 2024 presidential election, 81% of Trump’s voters were homeowners, according to AP VoteCast data. This means many of his supporters already have mortgages with low rates or own their homes outright, possibly blunting the importance of housing as an issue.Older voters tend to show up to vote more than do younger people, said Oscar Pocasangre, a senior data analyst at liberal think tank New America who has studied the age divide in U.S. politics. “However, appealing to older voters may prove to be a misguided policy if what’s needed to win is to expand the voting base,” Pocasangre said.Before the 2026 elections, voters have consistently rated affordability as a top concern, and that is especially true for younger voters with regard to housing.Booker Lightman, 30, a software engineer in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, who identifies politically as a libertarian Republican, said the shortage of housing has been a leading problem in his state.Lightman just closed on a home last month, and while he and his wife, Alice, were able to manage the cost, he said that the lack of construction is pushing people out of Colorado. “There’s just not enough housing supply,” he said.Shay Hata, a real estate agent in the Chicago and Denver areas, said she handles about 100 to 150 transactions a year. But she sees the potential for a lot more. “We have a lack of inventory to the point where most properties, particularly in the suburbs, are getting between five and 20 offers,” she said, describing what she sees in the Chicago area.New construction could help more people afford homes because in some cases, buyers qualify for discounted mortgage rates from the builders’ preferred lenders, Hata said. She called the current situation “very discouraging for buyers because they’re getting priced out of the market.”But pending construction has fallen under Trump. Permits to build single-family homes have plunged 9.4% over the past 12 months in October, the most recent month available, to an annual rate of 876,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Trump’s other ideas to help people buy houses Trump has not always been against increasing housing supply.During the 2024 campaign, Trump’s team said he would create tax breaks for homebuyers, trim regulations on construction, open up federal land for housing developments and make monthly payments more manageable by cutting mortgage rates. Advisers also claimed that housing stock would open up because of Trump’s push for mass deportations of people who were in the United States illegally.As recently as October, Trump urged builders to ramp up construction. “They’re sitting on 2 Million empty lots, A RECORD. I’m asking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get Big Homebuilders going and, by so doing, help restore the American Dream!” Trump posted on social media, referring to the government-backed lenders.But more recently, he has been unequivocal on not wanting to pursue policies that would boost supply and lower prices.In office, Trump has so far focused his housing policy on lobbying the Federal Reserve to cut its benchmark interest rates. He believes that would make mortgages more affordable, although critics say it could spur higher inflation. Trump announced that the two mortgage companies, which are under government conservatorship, would buy at least $200 billion in home loan securities in a bid to reduce rates.Trump also wants Congress to ban large financial institutions from buying homes. But he has rejected suggestions for expanding rules to let buyers use 401(k) retirement accounts for down payments, telling reporters that he did not want people to take their money out of the stock market because it was doing so well.There are signs that lawmakers in both parties see the benefits of taking steps to add houses before this year’s elections. There are efforts in the Senate and House to jump-start construction through the use of incentives to change zoning restrictions, among other policies.One of the underlying challenges on affordability is that home prices have been generally rising faster than incomes for several years.This makes it harder to save for down payments or upgrade to a nicer home. It also means that the places where people live increasingly double as their key financial asset, one that leaves many families looking moneyed on paper even if they are struggling with monthly bills.There is another risk for Trump. If the economy grows this year, as he has promised, that could push up demand for houses as well as their prices making the affordability problem more pronounced, said Edward Pinto, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank.Pinto said construction of single-family homes would have to rise by 50% to 100% during the next three years for average home price gains to be flat a sign, he said, that Trump’s fears about falling home prices were probably unwarranted.“It’s very hard to crater home prices,” Pinto said. Josh Boak, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
If you were up late celebrating the Seattle Seahawks’ win at the Super Bowl last night, you may need help from caffeine to get you through your busy Monday routine. You’re in luck. Today (Monday, February 9), Starbucks Rewards members can get a free tall (12-ounce) coffee with the purchase of another beverage. Find out what you need to do to score your free cup of Joe from Starbucks. Starbucks has added its brand-new 1971 Roast to the menu Starbuckss hometown team, the Seattle Seahawks, won the big game last night, but thats not the only win that the coffee chain is celebrating. On Monday, February 9, Starbucks is officially introducing its brand-new coffee blend, 1971 Roast, to the world. The name is tied to its history. The coffee company first opened its doors at Seattles Pike Place Market in 1971. The dark-roast blend features coffees from Colombia, Sumatra, and Brazil. It includes notes of toasted sugar and rich walnut. Starbucks is also welcoming the following globally inspired pastries to its menu today: Dubai Chocolate Bite Cookie Croissant Swirl Berry Blondie Strawberry Matcha Loaf Chocolate Pistachio Loaf Yuzu Citrus Blossom In celebration of the new 1971 Roast, Today, Starbucks Rewards members can get a free 12-ounce iced or brewed coffee with the purchase of another drink. If youre headed into the office this morning, this deal is a perfect excuse to grab a coffee for you and a coworker. Heres how to get a free cup of coffee at Starbucks If youre a Starbucks Rewards member, youll find a free coffee coupon in the Starbucks app. You can claim your free 12-ounce coffee with the purchase of another drink at the register, drive-thru, or by ordering ahead through the app. Heres how to redeem your freebie: At the drive-thru or register, order a beverage, and ask them to add a free tall coffee. When scanning your Starbucks Rewards account at checkout, the coupon will be applied. When ordering ahead in the app, add both beverages to your cart and apply the coupon to redeem your free 12-ounce coffee. Visit StarbucksMonday.com for the full details about this promotion.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||