[RE]

As if our own homegrown homeless problem isn't bad enough, our usual forward thinking goobermint is importing families from other countries, all through legal channels and not illegal migrants without having any kind of plan in place on how or where to house them.

Now, we all know that pressure is on to keep the immigrants flowing in, because of a serious shortage of cheap labor to staff Mickey Ds, hotel maids, restaurant dishwashers and landscapers for the Hamptons mansions of the .001%.  At the same time however, there is a shortage of affordable housing if you even have a decent paying job, much less the often sub-minimum wage jobs available to wetbacks who can't even speak english yet.  They don't even at least have the forethought to just import unmarried single who could triple and quadruple up to afford a 1 bedroom slum or efficiency studio in a section 8 motel, they are shipping them in complete with the kindergarten kids in tow.  This to insure that there are still more workers to take low paid jobs in the pipeline a decade from now.

Where is this influx coming from?  Besides the usual suspects down in Central & South America, you of course also have the war refugees from Ukraine, Iraq, Palestine etc rolling in by the boatloaad.  We are not talking small numbers here, MA a relatively small state already boasts 7000 families, expected to be up to 7500 by the end of the month.  This of course just as winter begins to bite in the Northeast.  One can only guess how many are debarking in NYC tonight, since it is the traditional first stop for the tired, hungry & poor population of useless eaters necessry to keep the capitalist system running.

At some point here this shit is just gonna break, and they will not be able to gloss over it with a few million thrown at motel slumlords to put some roofs over these people's heads.  The clock is ticking.

https://www.wcvb.com/article/massachusetts-migrant-crisis-gov-healey-oct-16/45547842

'We do not have enough space' in Massachusetts shelters, Gov. Healey says

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[RE]

Back from the East Coast to Homeless in the far west of the Last Great Frontier, with Winter beginning to set in but not quite yet baring its full white icy teeth, Anchorage is finally implementing its plan for the Homeless population.  Although a smaller estimated number than Mass-of-we-could-give-2shits, their budget is concommitently smaller as well.  They also of course predictably have underestimated the numbers even publicly, and I can about guarantee the actual number of unreported and uncounted is near double the published count.  So, they already have a waiting list with no place to put them, and are scrambling to figure something out before the sub-zero nights come rolling in along with snowfall measured in feet and nor inches.  48 dead already this year, so we're on track to set a new annual by Dec 31st, but the winter toll between now and the Ides of March is the really interesting one to watch.

Fortunately, I remain comfortably housed in my $16,500/mo Dorm Room for Cripples at SNIF University, which so far Medicaid continues to reliably pay on time, although I have had some suspicious "impromptu" chats regarding a discharge plan from the supervising doctor and the asst Social Work director so I'm never feeling very safe, with the Sword of Damocles always hanging over my head that I'll be given an ultimatum about getting out of here for someplace cheaper to house my crippled ass.

Still not freezing to death as a homeless cripple on the streets of Anchorage, Alaska.

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https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2023/10/18/as-officials-begin-moving-anchorages-unhoused-to-winter-shelter-a-long-and-growing-waitlist-sparks-alarm/

As officials begin moving Anchorage's unhoused to winter shelter, a long and growing waitlist sparks alarm

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[RE]

IF one happens to have a car they can sleep in...

I've always advocated for Van ownership if you are sliding off the economic cliff, and prior to getting evicted from your last apartment if you do own a car, trade it in for a van before you pay your last couple of months of rent.

Vans can park in all the same spots as carz, but unlike RVs don't totally advertize that you live in it as long as it looks like a mom's soccer van or a flower shop delivery vehicle.  Vans provide much more comfortable sleeping space and more room for storage of extra clothes, a hibachi grill, a computer work station etc than a car does.  Also you can have a toilet bucket/seat combo and piss jug for privacy for your excretory needs during the nightime sleeping hours.  After you poop into the bucket lined with a plastic shopping bag, you go dispose of the poop in the nearest dumpster.  Trucker use this trick all the time.  OTR tractors have nice sleeping berths but no mini bathroom like RVs usually.

I kept a van bugout machine right up until this last move into the SNIF.  It just became too big a pain in the ass keeping the battery charged up since I never used it.  Although in a pinch I probably could still drive using my left foot, getting in and out by myself was close to impossible.  So now, if I lose my last fixed domicile living arrangement, I will die when the next winter sets in, a frozen cripple living on the streets of Anchorage Alaska.  So far, it looks like I am good for this winter though.

https://vandwellers.org/

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[RE]

How about booking them into AirBnBs?  The Homeless  Hilton!  Beverly Hills 90210 Homeless?

Seriously, as a mixed use facility with tourists, the problems are obvious, but there is no reason an entire hotel couldn't be booked by the city.  Corporations do this all the time for conventions.  They get a reduced rate on all the rooms.  The city would have to take out insurance for damages.

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4275376-la-will-destroy-its-tourism-industry-if-it-turns-its-hotels-into-homeless-shelters/https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4275376-la-will-destroy-its-tourism-industry-if-it-turns-its-hotels-into-homeless-shelters/

LA will destroy its tourism industry if it turns its hotels into homeless shelters

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[RE]

We have all been treated for quite some time to all of the impromptu Tent Cities that homeless and migrants have set up in various major cities as well as along the Rio Grande as they await their interviews for entrance into the Land of Good & Plenty.  Until now however the only ones that were officially run by Da Goobermint were the ones directly surrounding the Border Crossings.

The combined problem of locally grown homelessness and rapid influx of migrants from war zones and failed states has now become so large that major cities like New York and Phoenix are opening up official Hoovervilles, the name for the Tent Cities that sprung up under the administration of Herbert Hoover, POTUS at the beginning of the Great Depression.

1930s Seattle had 8 Hoovervilles around the city

I have long been in favor of creating designated spaces for legalized camping in tents and cars & RVs as an alternative to the regular sweeps and cleanups of locations, where the residents pickup and move somewhere else for a while, then eventually move back, rinse and repeat 2 or 3 times over the winter months making problems for everyone since they don't have anywhere better for them to go to.  You can make the encampment disappear for a while but the people do not disappear.  Not yet anyhow.

So OK, now they are trying the legal tent cities method, with 2 problems.  On the one hand, the Human Rights advocates types do not consider such living arrangements worthy of human habitation since they lack such amenities a hot & cold running water, flush toilets and central heating.  The prospective residents don't like them because they are dropped down in the middle of nowhere without so much as a convenience store nearby, plus restrictions against alcohol.  This means you can't even have a beer at home in your tent space!  That really is inhumane treatment!

With their current configuration, I do not forsee these Hoovervilles to make much of a dent in the homeless situation.  Right now in NYC where empty commercial real estate is in hefty supply, I think renting out some of these buildings and converting them for residential living would be a better alternative.  That won't happen too soon either.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2023/11/13/phoenix-structured-campground-open-for-homeless-population/71524369007/

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/investigations/migrant-crisis/controversial-tent-city-shelter-opens-to-migrant-families-in-nyc/4855588/

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[RE]

With their current configuration, I do not forsee these Hoovervilles to make much of a dent in the homeless situation.  Right now in NYC where empty commercial real estate is in hefty supply, I think renting out some of these buildings and converting them for residential living would be a better alternative.  That won't happen too soon either.

Finding an appropriate name for homeless encampments would appear a good reason to re-elect Trump to the presidency. Designating these Trumpvilles would be an amusing and ironic tribute to the master builder.

While BO was POTUS we called them Obamavilles, but Bidenvilles just doesn't have a good ring to it.  Trumpvilles is excellent, particularly due to the real estate irony.  However,  that is not a good enough reason to vote for him. lol.

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[RE]

While I sit languishing on Waiting Lists to move back to an independent living situation,  I have been pondering the question of WHY this housing is in such short supply, because it is clearly desperaately needed.  The problem trickles down to the vast number of immigrants currently being shovelled into Hoovervilles because no housing is available for them either.

Is it really true that there aren't enough housing units available for all these people?  I don't think so.  I think the problem is that since real estate is a For Profit bizness, empty units are not being made available because if the rents are lowered to what people can afford, the assessed value of the property would be lower than the mortgage, which would mean that the banks who hold those mortgages would be insolvent.  So the apartments are not rented, just listed at the unaffordable price they need to be rented at to pay the mortgage.  The bank and the builders do not have to realize the loss as long as they maintain the fiction that the apartment can be rented at the luxury price they projected when they approved the developer's loan to build it 10 or 20 years ago.

If you go on Zillow or Rent.com or Apartments.com, in any neighborhood anywhere there are hundreds of 1 bedroom apartments available at whatever the neighborhood considers "market rate".  So for instance here in Anchorage on Zillow alone there are 207 1-3 bedroom apts listed for between $1-2000/month.  The problem is that the current 1000 or so people on the Shelter waiting list can't afford $1000/mo, many of them have $0 official income, they subsist on food stamps and money earned in the drug trade or pawning stolen good or odd jobs that pay cash.  Even for those who get a SS check or a check from ther native tribe, it's only a few $100s/month.

However, if there are 1000 people with basically $0 in income, there are  10,000 people with income of $1000/mo, which is not sufficient to get approved for an apt that lists at $1500/mo.  Property mgmt companies will not approve you if the rent is more than about 40% of your monthly income.  This class of people is actually huge, because the average SS recipient in Alaska is $1348 for disability and $1614 for retirement.  Since most people in this class also only have SS as their income, you are talking at least half of all retired and disabled people cannot afford market rate rents.  Given the population as a whole is ageing, that's a lot of current Alaska residents.  The same is true for all the people living down n the lower 48.

Quite clearly, something's gotta give here.  I believe this must be declared a National Emergency and Force Majeure implemented over the Real Estate market nationwide.  All properties commercial and residential currently unoccupied should be inventoried and then distributed out with 1 year leases for free.  This will take everyone off the streets immediately.

Once the immediate problem is solved, the long term problem should be addressed.  Since private developers won't build affordable housing, a Goobermint home building company like the WPA should be assigned the resposibility for building single and double occupancy units in every major city equal to or greater than the number of immigrants that city is expected to accept each year.

All these new housing units will be paid for by a wealth tax of 99% on all Billionaires.

The private real estate market will be allowed to adjust down ward once there is free public housing available for everyone.  Insolvent banks will not be bailed out and all their remaining assets taken and their stockholders bankrupted.

Problem solved. 

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[RE]

The bank and the builders do not have to realize the loss as long as they maintain the fiction that the apartment can be rented at the luxury price they projected when they approved the developer's loan to build it 10 or 20 years ago.

This is a good observation if true because it is similar to banks not having to recognize a loss on low-interest bonds they hold if the bank says they intend to hold them until maturity. Of course saying you intended to hold until maturity and actually intending to do so are two different thing.

Yes, it is exactly the same thing, and almost certainly true because if not, then where did all the units go that have been built over the last 20 years? How is it that there is such a sudden increase in disparity between the number of housing units available and the number of people who need them?

Perhaps a combination of a lower pace of building during the covid epidemic and the increasing number of immigrants coming in now has created the crunch, or at least exacerbated it.  If that is the problem, in THEORY, the capitalist market should respond with an increase in building now, but it is not doing so.  Why?  Because the rapid rise in the interest rates has made it harder for developers to get loans to put up low income housing, even with the tax incentives handed out to get them to do this type of building.

A good platform for a Democratic candidate would be to increase these tax incentives and at the same time subsidize the rents for low income applicants, as well as offering 3 months free rent to recent immigrants while they look for jobs.  The rent prices should be scaled to 40%  of what a person earns taking a min wage job for 40 hours/week in the zip code of that apartment building.  Again, the tax subsidies and developer loans would be financed by a wealth tax on Billionaires.

There would be a lag time of 1-2 years before the units start coming available, but that can be addressed as mentioned using the empty floors and buildings in the commercial RE market.  Of course office space isn't perfect living space since it lacks showers and you would have to share bathrooms, but it's way better than Tents with no electricity or running water in the middle of nowhere.

What currently appears to be the case is that the big cities like NYC & Chicago are throwing up the tent cities as a political ploy to say they are doing SOMETHING,  while in fact they are doing NOTHING.  Venezuelan immigrants given rides out to these places have gotten right back on the bus to go back to the intake center, despite being told take it or leave it, otherwise you sleep in the street.  It's a complete joke, there's no way to get to any jobs, no way for kids to go to school, nothing for anyone to do, etc.  I'm not even sure what they are supposed to do for food.  K-Rations?

Another question on my mind is why Venezuelans right now?  What is going on there beyond the usual failed state stuff?  Any news from there I missed out on?

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[Nearings Fault]

How about viewing all this from an energy lens. Maybe the era of the 1 bedroom apartment with kitchen, bathroom, living room for every single person, the least efficient mode of housing, is an artificial product of the age of cheap energy. The cracks have been papered over as long as possible but they can't hide now. Multi generational housing, boarding houses granny suites or just a room in an over shared house are going to have to make a comeback as we return to historical norms in terms of income and energy use. I don't worry about the housing shortage it's an artificial blip created by a wealthy generation that bought too much housing and is holding on too long thinking it's worth more than it is. What other things do you buy become more valuable as they ages? Why is a 40 year old house with a worn out furnace, mold filled duct work, electrical wiring chewed by rodents, soggy roof plywood etc worth more when old then new? Crazy. 

[RE]

How about viewing all this from an energy lens. Maybe the era of the 1 bedroom apartment with kitchen, bathroom, living room for every single person, the least efficient mode of housing, is an artificial product of the age of cheap energy.

Actually, the opposite is true.  Because 1 bedroom units are usually built in large buildings, they are more efficient than rooms in single family homes.  Fewer units have exterior facing walls.  In fact when I lived at Creekwood Park, because my unit was surrounded by units on either side and had one above it, I actually almost never had to turn on my own furnace, enough heat came through the shared walls with my neighbors and little leaked out the ceiling to keep my unit warm enough.  The bigger the building, the more floors and less roof space/unit, the more efficient in use of heat.

You could think of my current SNIF as just a very big one family house with 102 tiny bedrooms for the extended family of grandparents.  All our little bedrooms surround common areas that17 of us share, like a big living room.  All the cooking is done in one kitchen in large pots and ovens, saving energy from individually cooking meals, or even for meals for a big extended family like the Waltons.

A really efficient building for single people would have individual bedrooms and shared kitchens for a communal style of living.  A well run old folks home like this one is a good model.  The only thing wrong here is the medical industry and overpriced staffing  administration and insurance costs.  If it was reorganized so young healthy people could get a free room in exchange for helping out the old folks and old folks like me who still can do stuff were put to work we could run the place ourselves.  I would love to run the kitchen here, it would be a blast.  I actually met laast week with the chief cook to discuss some ideas and ways to change the menu and choices available.  I could also easily handle the front dest and transportation scheduling, etc.





The single family home model is actually the least eefficient building method for energy efficiency.  Bigger buildingss housing more people are much more efficient.

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[Nearings Fault]

How about viewing all this from an energy lens. Maybe the era of the 1 bedroom apartment with kitchen, bathroom, living room for every single person, the least efficient mode of housing, is an artificial product of the age of cheap energy.

Actually, the opposite is true.  Because 1 bedroom units are usually built in large buildings, they are more efficient than rooms in single family homes.  Fewer units have exterior facing walls.  In fact when I lived at Creekwood Park, because my unit was surrounded by units on either side and had one above it, I actually almost never had to turn on my own furnace, enough heat came through the shared walls with my neighbors and little leaked out the ceiling to keep my unit warm enough.  The bigger the building, the more floors and less roof space/unit, the more efficient in use of heat.

You could think of my current SNIF as just a very big one family house with 102 tiny bedrooms for the extended family of grandparents.  All our little bedrooms surround common areas that17 of us share, like a big living room.  All the cooking is done in one kitchen in large pots and ovens, saving energy from individually cooking meals, or even for meals for a big extended family like the Waltons.

A really efficient building for single people would have individual bedrooms and shared kitchens for a communal style of living.  A well run old folks home like this one is a good model.  The only thing wrong here is the medical industry and overpriced staffing  administration and insurance costs.  If it was reorganized so young healthy people could get a free room in exchange for helping out the old folks and old folks like me who still can do stuff were put to work we could run the place ourselves.  I would love to run the kitchen here, it would be a blast.  I actually met laast week with the chief cook to discuss some ideas and ways to change the menu and choices available.  I could also easily handle the front dest and transportation scheduling, etc.





The single family home model is actually the least eefficient building method for energy efficiency.  Bigger buildingss housing more people are much more efficient.

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I won't argue that too much. So basically the dorm room model would be the most efficient. I would not be surprised if you start seeing some of that with the underused office space. In my own research one of the stumbling blocks of the transformation of office space turns out to be plumbing. Office buildings tend to have centralized plumbing which does not work when you want to turn it into 12 one bedrooms each with bathroom and kitchen. Dorm model? Much more doable. Individualized plumbing and cooking facilities are very inefficient and expensive. In defense of the single home in my world of rural living large buildings are very uncommon and a move to more centralized structures would take decades. Large underused homes though are very common here. A move to shared housing could be done relatively quickly and at very little cost. Right now I see the stumbling block to it being people being unwilling to give up their sense of entitlement to that space and lowering expectations of rentors. Lack of money to keep an apartment or home should alter those feelings in time. I don't feel bad about our space. There are 4 of us, it's a very efficient house and when the young things leave we have already discussed either creating an apartment downstairs or downsizing. We have to travel too much, we could probably pack a few more in here, grow more food ourselves etc. but I too suffer from my energy rich delusions.
I've often thought about the medieval town surrounded by fields often with common walls between houses. Very efficient space wise, not much travel to get your resources. Maybe in our futures again.
Cheers,  NF

[Surly1]

Since private developers won't build affordable housing, a Goobermint home building company like the WPA should be assigned the resposibility for building single and double occupancy units in every major city equal to or greater than the number of immigrants that city is expected to accept each year.

While I applaud the image of banksters and developers either reduced to penury and/or swinging from lampposts, don't overlook the NIMBY factor. Every time a municipality down here tries to create "affordable" housing, the local civic leagues mount a hue and cry about how such a project would mean The End of the World as we Know It: not in my back yard. After all, it might house "those" people.

Some things never change. In America. the only unforgivable crime is to be poor.

[RE]

Since private developers won't build affordable housing, a Goobermint home building company like the WPA should be assigned the resposibility for building single and double occupancy units in every major city equal to or greater than the number of immigrants that city is expected to accept each year.

While I applaud the image of banksters and developers either reduced to penury and/or swinging from lampposts, don't overlook the NIMBY factor. Every time a municipality down here tries to create "affordable" housing, the local civic leagues mount a hue and cry about how such a project would mean The End of the World as we Know It: not in my back yard. After all, it might house "those" people.

Some things never change. In America. the only unforgivable crime is to be poor.

Indeed, NIMBY is a big problem, which is why the Hooverville in NYC was plopped down on Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn.  It's an old airstrip all the way out on Jamaica bay which might be like 2 feet above sea level so as soon as you get a decent storm and a King Tide, all the migrants there will be washed out to sea.  lol.

The Homeless Migrants are so low on the NIMBY scale, not even the people who live in the crime infested project housing in Brooklyn want them next door.  There is no public transportation out there, no subway or bus service for miles.  No stores, no schools, nada.  You might as well be putting them in the middle of the sahara desert.

As you indicate, even for normal low income housing,  "middle class" neighborhoods such as they exist anymore don't want them because their precious property value would decrease, because of course the next buyer doesn't want to live next to poor people.  That's WHY people moved out of the cities to the suburbs, once you got rich enough to afford one of the tract houses built on Long Island after WWII, you left your apartment in Brooklyn for new poor immigrants to move into.

Now of course nobody currently in those apts can afford to move out of them to new  McMansions out in the burbs, both because theey are unaffordable and because there is almost no room left for new subdivisions.  All the farmland that had been on LI before WWII has been completely gobbled up, all the way out to Montauk.

So the only real solution here is to increase the density of the buildings, which means taking the single family homes still in parts of Brooklyn and Queens, razing them and putting up multi story buildings.  Nobody who owns a house in such a neighborhood wants that now, because no matter how much a developer pays for their plot of land, it's not going to be enough to buy anything close to what they would be selling.

NYC itself has had the same 8M or so population size my whole life.  The only increase in population has been in the "Greater NY Area", which is about a 25 mile radius around Manhattan and includes all the "Bridge & Tunnel" people from NJ, LI and Westchester County.The only way to increase the population housing capacity would be to raze the single family homes in places like Nassau County and Hoboken and on Staten Island.  The Boomers who own those homes won't sell them, they'll leave them in their wills for their favorite Gen Z Great Grandchild.

Too many people want to move in to NY from around the world, just like they always have.  The difference today is the people who have been living there no longer have better places to move to as they become richer.  Everywhere else is too expensive to replace what they have, and there aren't great new high paying job opportunities elsewhere to attract most of them, particularly retired Boomers.

Basically, some other city should be picked to send all these folks to after they cross the border.  Maybe some old Rust Belt cities like Cleveland or Buffalo have room to build some new low income housing.  Any job opportunities in those place?  Well, no, that's why they are rust belt cities!  lol.

Since this is only the beginning of the Collapse of Industrial Civilization, things will be getting worse before they get better.  Much worse.  Enjoy this moment.  10 years from now these will be the Good Old Days.

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[RE]

I won't argue that too much. So basically the dorm room model would be the most efficient.

It is definitely the best model in an idealized world where everybody gets along well and does their share.  Unfortunately in the real world those last two caveats aren't necessarily true unless all the people in such a housing model have some commonality, like they are all members of the same religious cult. lol.

Taking your example of Dormitory style living, at Columbia one of the dorms actually built by Barnard (the sister college for women back before they went coed) Plimpton Hall had 4 suites with 2 shared bedrooms each all surrounding a central kitchen/dining are.  The problem for all my friends who lived there was that all 16 people sharing the kitchen were not equally good about washing their dishes and cleaning the fridge of old leftovers, or picking up the beer cans from the last party.  It follows the 80-20 rule, where 80% of the work gets done by 20% of the people, who eventually tire of cleaning up after the slobs.  Same problem with cleaning the shared bathrooms, though there only 4 people shared each of the 4 bathrooms.

Once you get to the size of a really big commune like my SNIF for 102 people, you have to have paid staff for the Housekeeping aspect, and that would be true even if the place wasn't populated by old folks and cripples who can't mop floors and scrub toilets.  If it was a cult commune with a really strong David Koresh running the place, he might be able to assign work details and threaten lazy culties with going to hell if they didn't keep the toilets clean on their turn in the rotation, but without some type of enforcement you can never get this sort of scut work done in a large group of unrelated people.  In the military, if you don't get your job on KP done, you'll get some time in the brig.  Screw up enough, you'll get a dishonorable discharge, a nasty thing to have on your record on a par with being a convicted felon even after you serve your prison sentence.

I do think in an area like yours with houses of 4 or 5 bedrooms, it would be a good idea to develop friendships with neighbors of similar age, and when the kids have all grown up, pick one of the bigger nicer houses with good common areas and share it with 2 or 3 other retired couples or singles, since some spouses will die off and there are divorces etc.  You could help each other with less need for old age homes and paid PCAs.  Could you envision making friends around there you could do that with?

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[Nearings Fault]

I won't argue that too much. So basically the dorm room model would be the most efficient.

It is definitely the best model in an idealized world where everybody gets along well and does their share.  Unfortunately in the real world those last two caveats aren't necessarily true unless all the people in such a housing model have some commonality, like they are all members of the same religious cult. lol.

Taking your example of Dormitory style living, at Columbia one of the dorms actually built by Barnard (the sister college for women back before they went coed) Plimpton Hall had 4 suites with 2 shared bedrooms each all surrounding a central kitchen/dining are.  The problem for all my friends who lived there was that all 16 people sharing the kitchen were not equally good about washing their dishes and cleaning the fridge of old leftovers, or picking up the beer cans from the last party.  It follows the 80-20 rule, where 80% of the work gets done by 20% of the people, who eventually tire of cleaning up after the slobs.  Same problem with cleaning the shared bathrooms, though there only 4 people shared each of the 4 bathrooms.

Once you get to the size of a really big commune like my SNIF for 102 people, you have to have paid staff for the Housekeeping aspect, and that would be true even if the place wasn't populated by old folks and cripples who can't mop floors and scrub toilets.  If it was a cult commune with a really strong David Koresh running the place, he might be able to assign work details and threaten lazy culties with going to hell if they didn't keep the toilets clean on their turn in the rotation, but without some type of enforcement you can never get this sort of scut work done in a large group of unrelated people.  In the military, if you don't get your job on KP done, you'll get some time in the brig.  Screw up enough, you'll get a dishonorable discharge, a nasty thing to have on your record on a par with being a convicted felon even after you serve your prison sentence.

I do think in an area like yours with houses of 4 or 5 bedrooms, it would be a good idea to develop friendships with neighbors of similar age, and when the kids have all grown up, pick one of the bigger nicer houses with good common areas and share it with 2 or 3 other retired couples or singles, since some spouses will die off and there are divorces etc.  You could help each other with less need for old age homes and paid PCAs.  Could you envision making friends around there you could do that with?

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The golden girls model is actively being discussed by 3 women in their 60-70's who all live in their own homes up the road a bit. All 3 are older farmhouses with land all just leased out for hay. It's a collosal holding of resources country style. Each property when originally constructed about 100 years ago housed large farm families and produced enough food to feed them all which a surplus. Now they grow hay for cows and horses, trees, and house widows who due to much better economic times have the money to hold onto these places. Meanwhile all the kids moved because there was no place to live and no jobs (ag jobs could exist but they are very demanding in terms of time and labour). It's the rural reality I have observed brought on by cheap energy.