When it comes to public accommodations, maybe San Francisco authorities should pick up the phone and call Barberton.

The tips from the Midwest could save them about a million dollars – and that's just the cost of installing a toilet, like the one San Francisco planned to install in one of its neighborhoods earlier this year for $1.7 million.

Barberton showed Monday that it can be done for a fraction of the cost on the West Coast when the City Council approved the addition of two restrooms in McCafferty Park, accounting for about 7.1 percent of the total estimated cost of San Francisco's only luxury restroom.

Of course, the City by the Bay's costs weren't just driven up by the restrooms themselves. It also included $60,000 for site improvements unrelated to sanitation, $125,000 for project and construction management, $2,000 for plantings, and $27,600 for unforeseen expenses—because when it comes to public restrooms, you can never be sure.

Barberton's structure will cost about $120,000, with the city providing water and sewer services, said Don Patterson, city parks director.

Limiting toilet supplies

The cost to San Francisco attracted widespread attention earlier this year, as media outlets around the world mercilessly ridiculed officials. Even Governor Gavin Newsom got involved, threatening to withhold state funding for the project.

In Barberton, however, when it comes to public restrooms, typical Midwestern frugality and common sense prevail.

Patterson said he wasn't sure why the cost of a toilet in the Golden State was so high.

“That's a good question,” Patterson said. “I don't know who they're dealing with out there.”

“I don’t want to badmouth them”: Director of Barberton Parks works to keep costs down

Patterson said the city strives to be frugal in its projects.

“The spending of government money is a very sensitive issue for me,” Patterson said. “It's taxpayers' money.”

More:Will the new group revitalize downtown? Main Street Barberton organizers talk about their mission

The parks director said the city is also planning restrooms for another park this year. He expects the Decker Park project to go before the City Council in April. He expects installation to occur about six months after City Council approval.

He refused to criticize San Francisco for its toilet farce.

“I don’t want to badmouth them,” he said.

More:6 reasons why you should subscribe to the Akron Beacon Journal

Leave a message for Alan Ashworth at 330-996-3859 or email him at ataashworth@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @newsalanbeaconj.

The post Barberton exhibits San Francisco how to save cash on $1.7M public bathroom appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

It now takes a full-time income of more than $61 an hour to comfortably afford the rent for an average two-bedroom apartment in the San Francisco metro area.

That’s far more than other expensive US cities like New York, where it takes $45 an hour on a standard 40-hour-per-week schedule, and more than triple San Francisco’s $16.99 minimum wage, according to a new report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

The San Francisco metro area, which also includes affluent Marin and San Mateo counties, tops the national list for the highest “housing wage,” or hourly earnings needed to spend no more than the federally recommended 30% of income on rent. 2 is Santa Cruz, where residents must earn more than $60 to rent an average two-bedroom. In the No. 3 San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metro area, the figure is around $55 an hour.

“These numbers are just a really clear mirror being held up,” said Alina Harway, communications director for the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California. “We’re seeing how the economy has created this big gap between those who have and those who don’t.”

Nationwide, minimum-wage earners in 91% of counties are unable to afford a one-bedroom rental, the report found. There is no state, county or metro area where a person who works a minimum-wage job can comfortably rent an average two-bedroom apartment.

It’s not the first time that Bay Area cities have dominated the coalition’s annual report on the stark mismatch between everyday incomes and housing costs. While the new report shows an ever-so-slight closing of the gap between what people are making and what they need to make to afford quality housing, the report cautions against comparing figures from different years because of changes in how average rents are calculated.

Now, however, all eyes are on shifts set in motion by the pandemic. After more than two years of remote work, migration anxiety and eviction battles, the Bay Area numbers reflect a widening divide between renters in different income brackets, a lack of home-buying options to relieve pressure and an uncertain road for households still struggling to catch up on COVID rent debt.

The report attributes the imbalance to a range of factors, including wage stagnation for low earners, inflation, an uptick in investor landlords and a shortfall of some 960,000 affordable rentals in California. There’s also the matter of surging demand for rentals; from the start of the pandemic to mid-2021, around 870,000 renters entered the market, the report noted — some not by choice.

“Many households entering the market were higher-income renters,” the National Low Income Housing Coalition report explains, “who may have been priced out of the increasingly competitive home-buying market.”

The abundance of high-earning renters is most obvious in the tech and professional services-driven San Francisco and San Jose metro areas, where the average renter now makes around $65 an hour and $68 an hour, respectively, according to adjusted Bureau of Labor Statistics data analyzed in the report. Compare that to an average renter income of $31 an hour in Oakland, which has a stronger base of industrial and administrative jobs, or less than $20 an hour in tourism and agriculture-centric Santa Cruz.

Landlord advocacy groups contend that in cities with rent control, including San Francisco, the math is more complicated. A July survey by the San Francisco Apartment Association found that average rents are still high citywide — $3,605 for a two-bedroom, or $2,678 for a one-bedroom — but that lower-priced studios in areas such as Nob Hill or the Tenderloin still rent for less than $1,500.

“Even though we’re not quite post-COVID, the rental market has improved,” Charley Goss, government and community affairs manager for the San Francisco Apartment Association, told The Chronicle by email. “We do have many members, particularly in the downtown corridor, who are really struggling and who cannot get their vacancies filled.”

Nationwide, the report found that persistent unaffordability “disproportionately harms Black and Latino households” because of enduring income disparities and the fact that these households are less likely to own homes. About 30% of white US households are renters, compared with 58% of Black households and 46% of Latino households, according to census data.

At first, Oakland seemed like a place of opportunity to Maria Montes de Oca. She moved here more than two decades ago after leaving the coastal Mexico state of Jalisco. The rent was a reasonable $750 when her growing family moved 14 years ago into a “supposedly clean” Fruitvale one-bedroom that turned out to have a dirty stove and old carpet, she said.

The carpet stayed the same while the rent climbed to $850, then $950, eventually all the way up to the current rent just over $1,500. Her husband switched jobs to try to keep up, Montes de Oca said, but even a new job cleaning a high-end hotel left little income for food or other necessities for a family of five.

“We were still limited,” she said in Spanish, “because every year the rent went up.”

The pandemic has also highlighted renters and now-former renters in extreme situations. In Alameda County, homelessness has spiked 22% in three years, to more than 9,700 people on any given night. From San Francisco to the shores of the Delta, tenants have been evicted from garages or boat marinas that they resorted to living illegally.

Politicians and housing advocates have countered with a range of potential solutions: $2 billion in state funding for affordable housing, new proposed vacancy taxes, federal proposals for more housing vouchers, temporary renter assistance funds and legal representation in eviction cases.

For Harway of the Non-Profit Housing Association, the scale of the proposed solutions still doesn’t match the scale of the problem. One clear local way to start to change that, she said, is for residents to get more involved in the state-mandated housing planning process — known as the “Regional Housing Needs Allocation” — which calls on the nine Bay Area counties to plan for more than 440,000 new homes by 2031.

It’s a process that is already sparking controversy, political maneuvering and legal threats, and one that she said will take both renters and homeowners like herself to prevent more people from being forced to move away.

“If I don’t go fight and support my neighbors to have stability, then what’s the point?” Harway said. “I’m not going to have teachers for my son. I’m not going to have anything that makes a community worth living in.”

For Montes de Oca, meanwhile, things took an unusual turn. She and her neighbors started to push back six years ago against yearly rent hikes with little offered in return. When the pandemic hit, they went on a rent strike.

As a mother of three, it was a daunting prospect. But lawyers and tenant activists got involved, and in June, an agreement was reached to sell the 14-unit building to the Oakland Community Land Trust for $3.3 million — a move that Montes de Oca said will freeze her family’s rent and, she hopes, deliver long-lasting stability.

“It was really six years of fighting, of stress,” she said in Spanish. “It wasn’t easy.”

There were nine families there when the fight started, Montes de Oca remembers. Now just two are left.

San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Roland Li contributed to this report.

Lauren Hepler (she/her) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: lauren.hepler@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LAHepler

The post In San Francisco, you should make this a lot cash to hire an residence appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

It now takes an income of more than $61 an hour to comfortably afford the rent for an average two-bedroom apartment in the San Francisco metro area.

That’s far more than other expensive US cities like New York, where it takes $45 an hour, and more than triple San Francisco’s $16.99 minimum wage, according to a new report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

The San Francisco metro area, which also includes affluent Marin and San Mateo counties, tops the national list for the highest “housing wage,” or hourly earnings needed to spend no more than the federally recommended 30% of income on rent. 2 is Santa Cruz, where residents must earn more than $60 to rent an average two-bedroom. In the No. 3 San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metro area, the figure is around $55 an hour.

“These numbers are just a really clear mirror being held up,” said Alina Harway, communications director for the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California. “We’re seeing how the economy has created this big gap between those who have and those who don’t.”

It’s not the first time that Bay Area cities have dominated the coalition’s annual report on the stark mismatch between everyday incomes and housing costs. While the new report shows an ever-so-slight closing of the gap between what people are making and what they need to make to afford quality housing, the report cautions against comparing figures from different years because of changes in how average rents are calculated.

Now, however, all eyes are on shifts set in motion by the pandemic. After more than two years of remote work, migration anxiety and eviction battles, the Bay Area numbers reflect a widening divide between renters in different income brackets, a lack of homebuying options to relieve pressure and an uncertain road for households still struggling to catch up COVID rent debt.

The report attributes the imbalance to a range of factors, including wage stagnation for low earners, inflation, an uptick in investor landlords and a shortfall of some 960,000 affordable rentals in California. There’s also the matter of surging demand for rentals; from the start of the pandemic to mid-2021, around 870,000 renters entered the market, the report noted — some not by choice.

“Many households entering the market were higher-income renters,” the National Low Income Housing Coalition report explains, “who may have been priced out of the increasingly competitive home-buying market.”

The abundance of high-earning renters is most obvious in the tech and professional services-driven San Francisco and San Jose metro areas, where the average renter now makes around $65 an hour and $68 an hour, respectively, according to adjusted Bureau of Labor Statistics data analyzed in the report. Compare that to an average renter income of $31 an hour in Oakland, which has a stronger base of industrial and administrative jobs, or less than $20 an hour in tourism and agriculture-centric Santa Cruz.

Nationwide, the report also found that unaffordability “disproportionately harms Black and Latino households” because of enduring income disparities and the fact that these households are less likely to own homes. About 30% of white US households are renters, compared with 58% of Black households and 46% of Latino households, according to Census data.

At first, Oakland seemed like a place of opportunity to Maria Montes de Oca. She moved here more than two decades ago after leaving the coastal Mexico state of Jalisco. The rent was a reasonable $750 when her growing family moved 14 years ago into a “supposedly clean” Fruitvale one-bedroom that turned out to have a dirty stove and carpet old, she said.

The carpet stayed the same while the rent climbed to $850, then $950, eventually all the way up to the current rent just over $1,500. Her husband switched jobs to try to keep up, Montes de Oca said, but even a new job cleaning a high-end hotel left little income for food or other necessities for a family of five.

“We were still limited,” she said in Spanish, “because every year the rent went up.”

The pandemic has also highlighted renters and now-former renters in extreme situations. In Alameda County, homelessness has spiked 22% in three years, to more than 9,700 people on any given night. From San Francisco to the shores of the Delta, tenants have been evicted from garages or boat marinas that they resorted to living illegally.

Politicians and housing advocates have countered with a range of potential solutions: $2 billion in state funding for affordable housing, new proposed vacancy taxes, federal proposals for more housing vouchers, temporary renter assistance funds and legal representation in eviction cases.

For Harway of the Non-Profit Housing Association, the scale of the proposed solutions still doesn’t match the scale of the problem. One clear local way to start to change that, she said, is for residents to get more involved in the state-mandated housing planning process — known as the “Regional Housing Needs Allocation” — which calls on the nine Bay Area counties to plan for more than 440,000 new homes by 2031.

It’s a process that is already sparking controversy, political maneuvering and legal threats, and one that she said will take both renters and homeowners like herself to prevent more people from being forced to move away.

“If I don’t go fight and support my neighbors to have stability, then what’s the point?” Harway said. “I’m not going to have teachers for my son. I’m not going to have anything that makes a community worth living in.”

For Montes de Oca, meanwhile, things took an unusual turn. She and her neighbors started to push back six years ago against yearly rent hikes with little offered in return. When the pandemic hit, they went on a rent strike.

As a mother of three, it was a daunting prospect. But lawyers and tenant activists got involved, and in June, an agreement was reached to sell the 14-unit building to the Oakland Community Land Trust for $3.3 million — a move that Montes de Oca said will freeze her family’s rent and, she hopes, deliver long-lasting stability.

“It was really six years of fighting, of stress,” she said in Spanish. “It wasn’t easy.”

There were nine families there when the fight started, Montes de Oca remembers. Now just two are left.

Lauren Hepler (she/her) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: lauren.hepler@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LAHepler

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By Brandon Miller, CFP

A Venn diagram of romantics and pessimists probably wouldn’t have much overlap, but both groups seem to dream of living abroad. Romantics read A Moveable Feast or The Motorcycle Diaries or Eat, Pray, Love and see themselves leaving familiar shores for more exotic places to call home. Pessimists don’t like the direction the country is headed in and dream of moving someplace cheaper and more in line with their views.

Whether you want to embrace a new country or run away from this one, moving abroad gives you lots to think through, including your housing, banking, and healthcare. Thorough planning can go a long way in making your transition to expat go more smoothly.

One thing many of my clients are surprised about is that Uncle Sam still expects some love come April 15. US citizens need to file a return and pay taxes on any worldwide income regardless of where they reside. Foreign financial accounts must be reported to the IRS, even if they don’t generate any taxable income.

Some other considerations before you start packing:

Will you live abroad all year or just part time? Living overseas doesn’t have to be all or nothing. As a part-timer, you may not need to sell your US house or buy a foreign one. Your current bank may have global partners that let you easily access your money when you’re out of the country. Health insurance is a different story, though, as Medicare, the ACA, and many domestic providers do not cover medical expenses outside the US You may need to get an international health insurance policy if the country where you live part-time does not provide public healthcare that you can access.

Living abroad fulltime generally requires more decisions. Should you sell your US house or rent it out for extra cash? Is it better to rent or buy a home (if possible) in your new country? You’ll most likely need to open an account at a bank where you’ll be living. Does it also make sense to hold onto an American bank account and credit card, as not all foreign banks offer the same amenities? And if your country of choice provides public medical care, should you supplement it with international health insurance for the flexibility to visit private hospitals and clinics?

What type of visa do you need? Your destination and the purpose of your stay will determine what’s required. An entry visa may suffice for students and tourists, while a resident visa may be needed to own property, get work, etc. If you plan to work while abroad, see if you qualify for a work visa. Better yet, get a company to transfer you to where you want to live and have them handle immigration details.

Permanent residency visas let you stay indefinitely in foreign countries that offer these. Just know that being able to show financial independence is a requirement for obtaining a visa for many countries, as they don’t want you moving there and becoming a burden on their system.

Do you want dual citizenship? Why forfeit your US citizenship when you can have your cake and eat it too? Some countries allow “golden passports” where you can buy your way into citizenship and others let you become a citizen if your ancestor was born there. Being a citizen of two countries can give you more flexibility and options when you travel. And hey, you’ll get another crack at taking a flattering passport photo.

Do you want to buy or rent? Your country of choice will determine if owning is even possible. If you’re able to buy, cash is king, of course. But if you need financing, know that foreign banks may require a steep downpayment and charge a much higher interest rate then what you see in the US You may also owe taxes when you buy the house and again if you sell, as well as having ongoing tax payments much like our property taxes.

The internet has lots of great tools to help you determine the rules and myriad requirements you’ll have to complete before booking passage to your new life. Just remember to do plenty of research before you go about fulfilling your expat dream or hitting the ejector button on your American life.

Brio does not provide tax or legal advice, and nothing contained in these materials should be taken as such. The opinions expressed in this article are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. To determine which investments may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor prior to investing. Any past performance discussed during this program is no guarantee of future results. Any indices referenced for comparison are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. As always please remember investing involves risk and possible loss of principal capital; please seek advice from a licensed professional.

Brio Financial Group is a registered investment adviser. SEC Registration does not constitute an endorsement of Brio by the SEC nor does it indicate that Brio has attained a particular level of skill or ability. Advisory services are only offered to clients or prospective clients where Brio Financial Group and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure. No advice may be rendered by Brio Financial Group unless a client service agreement is in place.

Brandon Miller, CFP®, is a financial consultant at Brio Financial Group in San Francisco, specializing in helping LGBT individuals and families plan and achieve their financial goals.

Published on May 5, 2022

The post Wish to Dwell Overseas? Make Certain Your Cash Is Prepared – San Francisco Bay Instances appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Monthly Expenses
Rent: $1,300 (for a three-bedroom, one-bathroom with two other roommates)
Utilities: $40
Renter’s Insurance: $10
Internet: Reimbursed through my roommate’s work.
Car Insurance: $97
Climbing Gym: $90
New York Times Subscription: $4
San Francisco Chronicles: $15
phone: $0 (I get reimbursed $50 a month through work which I send to my dad for our family plan.)
Apple Storage: $1
Netflix, Hulu & HBO Max: $0 (I share with my family. I also give them access to my news subscriptions.)
Transit: $0 (My work puts $270 on a transit debit card each month. I use this to load my transit card.)
401(k): $1,620
Health, Dental & Vision: $20 (pre tax)
Savings: $1,000
GiveWell Maximum Impact Fund: $99

The post UX Designer in San Francisco, CA — Cash Diary appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Jodi Raffa has been searching for a roommate for over a year. Her husband passed away five years ago, and compounding her loss was a 75% reduction in her household income.

The 76-year-old lives in a sunny three-bedroom, two-bathroom home overlooking a lake in a 55 and over community in Groveland, Fla. The sunsets from her back porch are “stunning.” However, the homeowners association fees just went up again and inflation has left her “flabbergasted.”

“I live on a very strict budget and am not able to indulge in any extras at all,” said Raffa, who worked in administrative jobs before she and her late husband retired in 2010. Raffa now views that move as a “hasty decision” in light of her financial circumstances. “I am a worrier and a planner so logic suggested getting a roommate.”

When she takes out ads specifying women over 55, she gets responses mostly from men in their 60s or adults in their 20s, 30s, or 40s. Raffa hopes for an easier way to find and vet potential sharers of her home. “I’m very frustrated,” she said.

Like so many boomers, Raffa wants to continue to live in her house and find a job working remotely, either in data entry or editing. Faced with escalating home prices and rents in tight housing markets, as well as careers or earnings curtailed by age or the pandemic, some boomers are looking to share their homes. Enter the boommates.

“With the boomers aging, you see higher and higher numbers in shared housing,” said Rodney Harrell, vice president of family, home and community at AARP, pointing out that boomers are more open than previous generations to trying alternative solutions to the traditional aging trajectory.

In a 1987 interview with NPR, the late Betty White noted that the four women who lived together in “The Golden Girls” did so for social reasons rather than financial necessity. “All that I think we have accomplished is to show that there is an alternative lifestyle,” White told “Fresh Air” about the success of the show. “If you notice, ‘The Golden Girls’ are not together for economic reasons. They’re together for sociological reasons. It fights the loneliness.”

Four decades later, the idea of ​​housemates late into adulthood is experiencing a revival, but with financial factors front and center. As boomers live longer and retire without the financial safety net of employer-sponsored pensions, covering the rising costs of food, housing and insurance become major considerations. Linda Hoffman, founder of the New York Foundation for Senior Citizens, which runs a home sharing program, noted an increasing amount of applications as finances become more of a stressor.

“When we started the home sharing program in 1981, relieving feelings of isolation and loneliness was the primary need,” Hoffman said. “Now, an affordable place to live is the number one need. Hosts need help in meeting their housing expenses.” Even for housemates who entered into the arrangement for social reasons, the extra money has become more important as their financial picture changed with the pandemic.

Debbi Campbell, 70, a retired copywriter, met Loretta Halter, a retired manager from the Kroger grocery chain, in 2018 at a Czech cultural event in New York City. Campbell was grieving the loss of her live-in boyfriend of almost 20 years to cancer. Halter had moved to New York City from Appling, Ga., several years earlier. She had used the NYFSC home sharing program earlier to find affordable apartment but was unhappy in her situation, which is when she decided to become housemates with Campbell.

The two went through the NYFSC program to handle the background checks, vetting and administrative details before Halter moved into Campbell’s rent-stabilized one-bedroom apartment in Greenwich Village. Before the pandemic, the two lived somewhat separate lives. Campbell lived mostly in the bedroom and Halter lived mostly in the living room. But when the city shut down they developed a strong friendship.

“First, we started with the crossword and the jigsaw puzzles, and the TV, and it turned out well,” Campbell said. The ease of the later-in-life roommate-as-friend experience surprised her. “I mean, I’m one of those people who’s spent a good time of my life in therapy, mostly complaining about people I knew.”

After initially being furloughed from her job as a long-term temp at the Department of Education in March 2020, Campbell retired in October 2020, at 68, more than a year earlier than she expected. She also opted to take Social Security benefits at that time, instead of waiting until 70 as she had planned.

“I had not been desperate over money, but having a pandemic come, suddenly you have company where you wouldn’t have. And suddenly there is extra money for you from home sharing, which I wouldn’t have had. It was just a bonanza. I feel like the luckiest person of the pandemic,” she said.

While the dozen home sharers interviewed for this story insisted their parents would have found the idea outlandish, having housemates later in life seems to be finding more acceptance. In 2021, 70% of adults over 50 reported being open to sharing their home with a family member who was not a spouse, 51% said they would be willing to share with a friend, and 6% would share a home with a stranger, according to a survey from AARP. Of those who reported they would not share their home at all, 23% said they would change their mind if they needed extra income.

“The majority of people considering home sharing with a friend or family member tells me that there’s an opportunity there for more people to take advantage of that excess housing stock that we already have within our own homes, and that perhaps meet your needs, and those of a friend or neighbor,” Harrell said. “Or maybe companionship that may help with costs, such as caregiving. There’s just so much advantage there. And we’re just not necessarily taking advantage of it. It’s nowhere near its potential.”

The growing interest in home sharing, especially for those boomers who are house-rich and cash-poor in expensive housing markets, is being cultivated by nonprofit and commercial programs as well as municipalities. Since 2015, New York, Seattle, Denver, Tucson, northern California and the metro Washington area all have or are launching programs.

“From what we’ve seen, attitudes are loosening toward home sharing,” Riley Gibson, president of Denver-based home sharing service Silvernest, which pairs older adults with housemates. The service is particularly active in tighter housing markets such as San Francisco, Phoenix, Tampa, Miami and Los Angeles. Silvernest recently partnered with Montgomery County in Maryland to start a pilot program and plans to launch in a few more cities later this year.

Renters and homeowners can fill out profiles on the site, which supports services including lease templates, insurance and background checks. A similar service, Boston-based Nesterly, matches older adults with younger ones to promote intergenerational home shares. Senior Homeshares, another service, has enrolled nearly 70,000 members across the country since its inception in 2015.

Even before the pandemic, demographics were shifting toward nonfamily households. In 1960, 85% of households were composed of families, according to the Population Reference Bureau. By 2017, that figure had fallen to 65% of households.

As Americans continue to age, Harrell and others expect growing demand for more housing options. “As a society, we’ve been building and thinking about younger families and building housing and communities for younger people,” he said.

“But that need has been shifting as community leaders, builders and designers” are “starting to think more and more about what happens to us as we age. And covid has given momentum to those conversations,” Harrell said.

For Kim Bolding, 61, home sharing enabled her to stay in the five-bedroom Colorado Springs home where she had raised her biological, adopted and foster children after being diagnosed with a form of muscular dystrophy in 2012.

Bolding, a former social worker, was able to keep working from home until 2017. But after she was forced to go on Social Security disability, the payments weren’t enough to keep up with her housing costs. “I did not want to have to go into just affiliate-type living. I wanted to keep my home,” she said.

First, a longtime neighbor moved downstairs, where he could have his own bathroom. With the help of Denver-based nonprofit Sunshine Home Share Colorado, Bolding found two more housemates. Since then, she has mostly lived with three other housemates at a time: two men on one floor sharing a bathroom and a woman on her floor. “It’s allowing me to be able to maintain my own individuality. I can say what I want when I set my own needs and rules,” she said.

All of the housemates are on disability, but collectively able to live independently. Bolding is able to host her adult children when they visit, but they don’t feel obligated to move in with her to manage her illness. Instead, she is building a new community with her housemates, holding regular dinners together.

“We run it like a family and we have space for others,” Bolding said. Having housemates is “a great alternative to being stuck in some place where you don’t have a lot of choices: who your neighbors are, who you interact with, or you lose a lot of autonomy and that’s part of the problem with aging, ” she added.

Bolding has already had several housemates who have moved out because of a change in their fortunes. Two have received government-subsidized housing, one has gotten married and another inherited a house and cars from an uncle who recently passed away. She thinks of her house as a harbinger of good luck and said she has received many calls asking for information or guidance on doing something similar.

“It’s becoming more and more popular, especially for my age group for people in similar situations. We need each other. We get blessed and they get blessed,” Bolding said.

The post Child boomers are transferring in collectively to economize | Life-style appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Jodi Raffa has been searching for a roommate for over a year. Her husband passed away five years ago, and compounding her loss was a 75% reduction in her household income.

The 76-year-old lives in a sunny three-bedroom, two-bathroom home overlooking a lake in a 55 and over community in Groveland, Fla. The sunsets from her back porch are “stunning.” However, the homeowners association fees just went up again and inflation has left her “flabbergasted.”

“I live on a very strict budget and am not able to indulge in any extras at all,” said Raffa, who worked in administrative jobs before she and her late husband retired in 2010. Raffa now views that move as a “hasty decision” in light of her financial circumstances. “I am a worrier and a planner so logic suggested getting a roommate.”

– ADVERTISEMENT –

When she takes out ads specifying women over 55, she gets responses mostly from men in their 60s or adults in their 20s, 30s, or 40s. Raffa hopes for an easier way to find and vet potential sharers of her home. “I’m very frustrated,” she said.

Like so many boomers, Raffa wants to continue to live in her house and find a job working remotely, either in data entry or editing. Faced with escalating home prices and rents in tight housing markets, as well as careers or earnings curtailed by age or the pandemic, some boomers are looking to share their homes. Enter the boommates.

“With the boomers aging, you see higher and higher numbers in shared housing,” said Rodney Harrell, vice president of family, home and community at AARP, pointing out that boomers are more open than previous generations to trying alternative solutions to the traditional aging trajectory.

In a 1987 interview with NPR, the late Betty White noted that the four women who lived together in “The Golden Girls” did so for social reasons rather than financial necessity. “All that I think we have accomplished is to show that there is an alternative lifestyle,” White told “Fresh Air” about the success of the show. “If you notice, ‘The Golden Girls’ are not together for economic reasons. They’re together for sociological reasons. It fights the loneliness.”

Four decades later, the idea of ​​housemates late into adulthood is experiencing a revival, but with financial factors front and center. As boomers live longer and retire without the financial safety net of employer-sponsored pensions, covering the rising costs of food, housing and insurance become major considerations. Linda Hoffman, founder of the New York Foundation for Senior Citizens, which runs a home sharing program, noted an increasing amount of applications as finances become more of a stressor.

“When we started the home sharing program in 1981, relieving feelings of isolation and loneliness was the primary need,” Hoffman said. “Now, an affordable place to live is the number one need. Hosts need help in meeting their housing expenses.” Even for housemates who entered into the arrangement for social reasons, the extra money has become more important as their financial picture changed with the pandemic.

Debbi Campbell, 70, a retired copywriter, met Loretta Halter, a retired manager from the Kroger grocery chain, in 2018 at a Czech cultural event in New York City. Campbell was grieving the loss of her live-in boyfriend of almost 20 years to cancer. Halter had moved to New York City from Appling, Ga., several years earlier. She had used the NYFSC home sharing program earlier to find affordable apartment but was unhappy in her situation, which is when she decided to become housemates with Campbell.

The two went through the NYFSC program to handle the background checks, vetting and administrative details before Halter moved into Campbell’s rent-stabilized one-bedroom apartment in Greenwich Village. Before the pandemic, the two lived somewhat separate lives. Campbell lived mostly in the bedroom and Halter lived mostly in the living room. But when the city shut down they developed a strong friendship.

“First, we started with the crossword and the jigsaw puzzles, and the TV, and it turned out well,” Campbell said. The ease of the later-in-life roommate-as-friend experience surprised her. “I mean, I’m one of those people who’s spent a good time of my life in therapy, mostly complaining about people I knew.”

After initially being furloughed from her job as a long-term temp at the Department of Education in March 2020, Campbell retired in October 2020, at 68, more than a year earlier than she expected. She also opted to take Social Security benefits at that time, instead of waiting until 70 as she had planned.

“I had not been desperate over money, but having a pandemic come, suddenly you have company where you wouldn’t have. And suddenly there is extra money for you from home sharing, which I wouldn’t have had. It was just a bonanza. I feel like the luckiest person of the pandemic,” she said.

While the dozen home sharers interviewed for this story insisted their parents would have found the idea outlandish, having housemates later in life seems to be finding more acceptance. In 2021, 70% of adults over 50 reported being open to sharing their home with a family member who was not a spouse, 51% said they would be willing to share with a friend, and 6% would share a home with a stranger, according to a survey from AARP. Of those who reported they would not share their home at all, 23% said they would change their mind if they needed extra income.

“The majority of people considering home sharing with a friend or family member tells me that there’s an opportunity there for more people to take advantage of that excess housing stock that we already have within our own homes, and that perhaps meet your needs, and those of a friend or neighbor,” Harrell said. “Or maybe companionship that may help with costs, such as caregiving. There’s just so much advantage there. And we’re just not necessarily taking advantage of it. It’s nowhere near its potential.”

The growing interest in home sharing, especially for those boomers who are house-rich and cash-poor in expensive housing markets, is being cultivated by nonprofit and commercial programs as well as municipalities. Since 2015, New York, Seattle, Denver, Tucson, northern California and the metro Washington area all have or are launching programs.

“From what we’ve seen, attitudes are loosening toward home sharing,” Riley Gibson, president of Denver-based home sharing service Silvernest, which pairs older adults with housemates. The service is particularly active in tighter housing markets such as San Francisco, Phoenix, Tampa, Miami and Los Angeles. Silvernest recently partnered with Montgomery County in Maryland to start a pilot program and plans to launch in a few more cities later this year.

Renters and homeowners can fill out profiles on the site, which supports services including lease templates, insurance and background checks. A similar service, Boston-based Nesterly, matches older adults with younger ones to promote intergenerational home shares. Senior Homeshares, another service, has enrolled nearly 70,000 members across the country since its inception in 2015.

Even before the pandemic, demographics were shifting toward nonfamily households. In 1960, 85% of households were composed of families, according to the Population Reference Bureau. By 2017, that figure had fallen to 65% of households.

As Americans continue to age, Harrell and others expect growing demand for more housing options. “As a society, we’ve been building and thinking about younger families and building housing and communities for younger people,” he said.

“But that need has been shifting as community leaders, builders and designers” are “starting to think more and more about what happens to us as we age. And covid has given momentum to those conversations,” Harrell said.

For Kim Bolding, 61, home sharing enabled her to stay in the five-bedroom Colorado Springs home where she had raised her biological, adopted and foster children after being diagnosed with a form of muscular dystrophy in 2012.

Bolding, a former social worker, was able to keep working from home until 2017. But after she was forced to go on Social Security disability, the payments weren’t enough to keep up with her housing costs. “I did not want to have to go into just affiliate-type living. I wanted to keep my home,” she said.

First, a longtime neighbor moved downstairs, where he could have his own bathroom. With the help of Denver-based nonprofit Sunshine Home Share Colorado, Bolding found two more housemates. Since then, she has mostly lived with three other housemates at a time: two men on one floor sharing a bathroom and a woman on her floor. “It’s allowing me to be able to maintain my own individuality. I can say what I want when I set my own needs and rules,” she said.

All of the housemates are on disability, but collectively able to live independently. Bolding is able to host her adult children when they visit, but they don’t feel obligated to move in with her to manage her illness. Instead, she is building a new community with her housemates, holding regular dinners together.

“We run it like a family and we have space for others,” Bolding said. Having housemates is “a great alternative to being stuck in some place where you don’t have a lot of choices: who your neighbors are, who you interact with, or you lose a lot of autonomy and that’s part of the problem with aging, ” she added.

Bolding has already had several housemates who have moved out because of a change in their fortunes. Two have received government-subsidized housing, one has gotten married and another inherited a house and cars from an uncle who recently passed away. She thinks of her house as a harbinger of good luck and said she has received many calls asking for information or guidance on doing something similar.

“It’s becoming more and more popular, especially for my age group for people in similar situations. We need each other. We get blessed and they get blessed,” Bolding said.

The post The brand new Golden Women: Child boomers are shifting in collectively to save cash appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

“I live on a very strict budget and am not able to indulge in any extras at all,” said Raffa, who worked in administrative jobs before she and her late husband retired in 2010. Raffa now views that move as a “hasty decision” in light of her financial circumstances. “I am a worrier and a planner, so logic suggested getting a roommate.”

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When she takes out ads specifying women over 55, she gets responses mostly from men in their 60s or adults in their 20s, 30s or 40s. Raffa hopes for an easier way to find and vet potential sharers of her home. “I’m very frustrated,” she said.

Like so many boomers, Raffa wants to continue to live in her house and find a job working remotely, either in data entry or editing. Faced with escalating home prices and rents in tight housing markets, as well as careers or earnings curtailed by age or the pandemic, some boomers are looking to share their homes. Enter the boommates.

“With the boomers aging, you see higher and higher numbers in shared housing,” said Rodney Harrell, vice president of family, home and community at AARP, pointing out that boomers are more open than previous generations to trying alternative solutions to the traditional aging trajectory.

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In a 1987 interview with NPR, the late Betty White noted that the four women who lived together in “The Golden Girls” did so for social reasons rather than financial necessity. “All that I think we have accomplished is to show that there is an alternative lifestyle,” White told “Fresh Air” about the success of the show. “If you notice, ‘The Golden Girls’ are not together for economic reasons. They’re together for sociological reasons. It fights the loneliness.”

Four decades later, the idea of ​​housemates late into adulthood is experiencing a revival, but with financial factors front and center. As boomers live longer and retire without the financial safety net of employer-sponsored pensions, covering the rising costs of food, housing and insurance become major considerations. Linda Hoffman, president and CEO of the New York Foundation for Senior Citizens, which runs a home-sharing program, noted an increasing number of applications as finances become more of a stressor.

“When we started the home-sharing program in 1981, relieving feelings of isolation and loneliness was the primary need,” Hoffman said. “Now, an affordable place to live is the number one need. Hosts need help in meeting their housing expenses.” Even for housemates who entered into the arrangement for social reasons, the extra money has become more important as their financial picture changed with the pandemic.

Debbi Campbell, 70, a retired copywriter, met Loretta Halter, a retired manager from the Kroger grocery chain, in 2018 at a Czech cultural event in New York City. Campbell was mourning the loss of her live-in boyfriend of almost 20 years to cancer. Halter had moved to New York City from Appling, Ga., several years earlier. She had used the NYFSC home-sharing program earlier to find an affordable apartment but was unhappy in her situation, which is when she decided to become housemates with Campbell.

The two went through the NYFSC program to handle the background checks, vetting and administrative details before Halter moved into Campbell’s rent-stabilized one-bedroom apartment in Greenwich Village. Before the pandemic, the two lived somewhat separate lives. Campbell lived mostly in the bedroom and Halter lived mostly in the living room. But when the city shut down, they developed a strong friendship.

Story continues below advertisement

“First, we started with the crossword and the jigsaw puzzles, and the TV, and it turned out well,” Campbell said. The ease of the later-in-life roommate-as-friend experience surprised her. “I mean, I’m one of those people who’s spent a good time of my life in therapy, mostly complaining about people I knew.”

After initially being furloughed from her job as a long-term temp at the Department of Education in March 2020, Campbell retired in October 2020, at 68, more than a year earlier than she expected. She also opted to take Social Security benefits at that time, instead of waiting until 70 as she had planned.

“I had not been desperate over money, but having a pandemic come, suddenly you have company where you wouldn’t have. And suddenly there is extra money for you from home sharing, which I wouldn’t have had. It was just a bonanza. I feel like the luckiest person of the pandemic,” she said.

While the dozen home sharers interviewed for this article insisted their parents would have found the idea outlandish, having housemates later in life seems to be finding more acceptance. In 2021, 70 percent of adults over 50 reported being open to sharing their home with a family member who was not a spouse, 51 percent said they would be willing to share with a friend and 6 percent would share a home with a stranger, according to a survey from AARP. Of those who reported they would not share their home at all, 23 percent said they would change their mind if they needed extra income.

Story continues below advertisement

“The majority of people considering home sharing with a friend or family member tells me that there’s an opportunity there for more people to take advantage of that excess housing stock that we already have within our own homes, and that perhaps meet your needs, and those of a friend or neighbor,” Harrell said. “Or maybe companionship that may help with costs, such as caregiving. There’s just so much advantage there. And we’re just not necessarily taking advantage of it. It’s nowhere near its potential.”

The growing interest in home sharing, especially for those boomers who are house-rich and cash-poor in expensive housing markets, is being cultivated by nonprofit and commercial programs as well as municipalities. Since 2015, New York, Seattle, Denver, Tucson, Northern California and the metro Washington area all have established or are launching programs.

“From what we’ve seen, attitudes are loosening toward home sharing,” Riley Gibson, president of Denver-based home sharing service Silvernest, which pairs older adults with housemates. The service is particularly active in tighter housing markets such as San Francisco, Phoenix, Tampa, Miami and Los Angeles. Silvernest recently partnered with Montgomery County in Maryland to start a pilot program and plans to launch in a few more cities later this year.

Renters and homeowners can fill out profiles on the site, which supports services including lease templates, insurance and background checks. A similar service, Boston-based Nesterly, matches older adults with younger ones to promote intergenerational home shares. Senior Homeshares, another service, has enrolled nearly 70,000 members across the country since its inception in 2015.

Story continues below advertisement

Even before the pandemic, demographics were shifting toward nonfamily households. In 1960, 85 percent of households were composed of families, according to the Population Reference Bureau. By 2017, that figure had fallen to 65 percent of households.

As Americans continue to age, Harrell and others expect growing demand for more housing options. “As a society, we’ve been building and thinking about younger families and building housing and communities for younger people,” he said.

“But that need has been shifting as community leaders, builders and designers” are “starting to think more and more about what happens to us as we age. And covid has given momentum to those conversations,” Harrell said.

Story continues below advertisement

For Kim Bolding, 61, home sharing enabled her to stay in the five-bedroom Colorado Springs home where she had raised her biological, adopted and foster children after being diagnosed with a form of muscular dystrophy in 2012.

Bolding, a former social worker, was able to keep working from home until 2017. But after she was forced to go on Social Security disability, the payments weren’t enough to keep up with her housing costs. “I did not want to have to go into just affiliate-type living. I wanted to keep my home,” she said.

First, a longtime neighbor moved downstairs, where he could have his own bathroom. With the help of Denver-based nonprofit Sunshine Home Share Colorado, Bolding found two more housemates. Since then, she has mostly lived with three other housemates at a time: two men on one floor sharing a bathroom and a woman on her floor. “It’s allowing me to be able to maintain my own individuality. I can say what I want when I set my own needs and rules,” she said.

Story continues below advertisement

All of the housemates are on disability, but collectively able to live independently. Bolding is able to host her adult children when they visit, but they don’t feel obligated to move in with her to manage her illness. Instead, she is building a new community with her housemates, holding regular dinners together.

“We run it like a family and we have space for others,” Bolding said. Having housemates is “a great alternative to being stuck in some place where you don’t have a lot of choices: who your neighbors are, who you interact with, or you lose a lot of autonomy and that’s part of the problem with aging, ” she added.

Bolding has already had several housemates who have moved out because of a change in their fortunes. Two have received government-subsidized housing, one has gotten married and another inherited a house and cars from an uncle who recently passed away. She thinks of her house as a harbinger of good luck and said she has received many calls asking for information or guidance on doing something similar.

“It’s becoming more and more popular, especially for my age group for people in similar situations. We need each other. We get blessed and they get blessed,” Bolding said.

The post Child boomers are shifting in collectively to economize appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

HOUSTON – The plumber responsible for finding a large sum of money inside the walls of a mega church in Houston now says he thinks he should get a reward.

The man who wanted to remain anonymous gave KPRC 2 a glimpse of the moment he found the loot in Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church on November 10th.

“This is probably the most exciting thing I’ve ever seen or done in my life,” says the plumber.

ALSO SEE: Plumber Discovers Money, Checks Joel Osteens Lakewood Church Wall Years After $ 600,000 Burglary

According to the preliminary investigation, Houston police said there was evidence that the case was linked to the March 9, 2014 theft report of undisclosed church funds.

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The plumber told KPRC 2 that although he did not find any information about the suspect, he believes that he should be rewarded for his discovery.

“I haven’t resolved your case, but I have very important clues as to what might or might have happened there,” he said.

Crime Stoppers originally offered a $ 25,000 reward for the information that led to the arrest of a suspect. Due to the expiry of the statute of limitations in this case of theft, however, the plumber will not receive any reward, says Deputy Director Nichole Christoph.

“That doesn’t rule out Lakewood [Church] to give him a reward or a combination of HPD that congratulates him on doing the right thing, ”said Christoph. “Unfortunately, at this point, Crime Stoppers is no longer in the game.”

However, if the plumber hadn’t fixed the loose toilet on the church, the money would still be in the walls.

“I feel like I should get something,” said the man. “I feel like I should be offered some kind of reward.”

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News of the discovery was brought to light on a morning radio broadcast at 100.3 The Bull.

“There was a loose toilet in the wall and we removed the tiles,” said the plumber on the phone. “We went to remove the toilet and I removed some insulation and about 500 envelopes fell off the wall and I thought, ‘Oh wow!'”

HPD continues to investigate both cases.

CONNECTED:

Houston’s Lakewood Church slumped for $ 600,000

Lakewood Church: The Houston Mega Church in Numbers

Copyright 2021 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.

The post Handyman who discovered doable theft cash in Lakewood Church’s partitions says he deserves reward appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Money / financial planning

eclipse_images / Getty Images

If you’re planning any major maintenance or renovation projects in 2022, be prepared to dig a little deeper into your bank account. The cost of maintaining the average single-family home in the US rose 9.3% last year, according to a new survey by Thumbtack, and there is every reason to believe that those costs will continue to rise over the next year.

According to a survey of more than 1,000 Americans in the 40 largest US cities, the higher maintenance costs for households were caused by labor and material shortages, as well as increasing demand for household services. About 30% of respondents said they would spend more than $ 10,000 on home projects in the next 12 months.

According to the Thumbtacks Home Care Price Index, released December 9, the average annual cost of maintaining a single family home is $ 4,886 – an increase of about $ 450 per household compared to 2020. The average cost of maintenance for a Townhouses soared 8.6% to $ 1,922 this year, while the average home maintenance cost increased 10% to $ 682.

See: 7 Easy Home Renovations To Get Started This Winter
Find: Who pays for home renovations on your favorite HGTV and other shows – and what do they cost?

Inflation to blame for rising prices?

Although these increases slowed significantly in the fourth quarter, overall inflation projections point to continued rising costs for almost everything in 2022.

Economists surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics estimate annual inflation will stay above 2% for the next three years amid rising wages and strong demand for goods and services, according to a recent Fox Business report. By the end of 2022, consumer price index inflation is expected to rise by almost 3%.

If this surge creeps into home maintenance, you can expect the average cost of servicing a single family home to climb to over $ 5,000 in 2022. Of course, a lot depends on the types of renovation or maintenance that are sought. In 2021, costs will rise for all but a few maintenance categories, according to Thumbtack. Here are some of the year-over-year cost increases for the current quarter:

• Sprinkler and irrigation repairs: 28.8%.
• Equipment maintenance: 19.7%.
• Sewer cleaning: 19.5%.
• Roof maintenance: 13.4%.
• Tree pruning: 13.4%.
• House cleaning: 13.3%.

Only three categories saw costs fall this quarter: chimney and chimney cleaning by 5.3%; central air conditioning maintenance (minus 1.8%); and lawn care (minus 0.4%).

Find out: Bathroom renovations that bring the greatest added value
Explore: 7 Easy Home Improvements for $ 5,000 or Less

Which US regions will be hardest hit by rising home maintenance costs?

In terms of geographic regions, Thumbtack’s home care price index has seen double-digit maintenance increases in numerous Sunbelt cities this year. Those who see some of the tallest peaks are West Palm Beach, Florida (+ 18.4%); Charlotte, North Carolina (+ 18%); Orlando, Florida (+ 16.6%); Houston, Texas (+ 15.8%); Miami, Florida (+ 14.4%); San Antonio, Texas (+ 13.8%); and San Diego, California (+ 13.7%).

Steep gains were also reported in hot residential markets such as Portland, Oregon (+ 33.9%); Las Vegas, Nevada (+ 17.6%); Seattle, Washington (+ 16.3%); Salt Lake City, Utah (+ 12.8%); New York City, New York (+ 12.1%) and Denver, Colorado (+ 10.5%).

At the other end of the spectrum, some cities have seen either declines or minimal increases in maintenance costs this year. This includes Baltimore, which was the only city on the list to see a 1.9% decline. Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, DC all reported increases of 3% or less.

See: Seasonal House Maintenance You Must Do To Maintain Your Home’s Value
Find: 12 Money Saving Home Maintenance Chores That You Don’t Need To Avoid anymore

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Regardless of where you live, experts recommend spending enough money on upkeep and renovations each year to keep your home in good condition.

“People in different cities will make different decisions, but what is clear is that while you can put off buying a new couch – if you have moved to a warmer climate, you can put the strain on servicing or repairing your air conditioning, sprinklers, and more Areas, “said David Steckel, home expert at Thumbtack, in a press release. “Proactive home care saves homeowners thousands of dollars in repairs and helps arrange replacement appointments.”

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About the author

Vance Cariaga is a London based writer, editor and journalist who previously worked for Investor’s Business Daily, The Charlotte Business Journal and The Charlotte Observer. His work has also appeared in Charlotte Magazine, Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal, and Business North Carolina Magazine. He holds a BA in English from Appalachian State University and studied journalism from the University of South Carolina. His coverage has been recognized by the North Carolina Press Association, the Green Eyeshade Awards, and AlterNet. In addition to journalism, he has worked in banking, accounting and restaurant management. Vance’s short story “Saint Christopher” is from North Carolina and also writes fiction. She took second place in the 2019 Writer’s Digest Short Short Story Competition. Two of his short stories appear in With One Eye on the Cows, an anthology published in 2019 by Ad Hoc Fiction. His debut novel, Voodoo Hideaway, was published by Atmosphere Press in 2021.

The post How A lot Cash Ought to You Price range for Dwelling Upkeep in 2022, Primarily based on Inflation? appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.