Moving your parents--where to start?

There is so much information on the internet about senior housing, how do you even start to sort through it all?  Which internet sites are providing information that will help you help your elderly parents move, and who is trying to "sell" you something?

Google these terms and look at the number of results you could spend the rest of the year reading:

• "senior services" there are 307,000,000
• "senior housing" there are 14,400,000 results
• "senior condo" there are 1,900,000

Even if we tried to limit the search down to resources in Minnesota by googling for information near home:

• "minnesota senior housing" there are 1,850,000 results;
• "minnesota senior condo" and there are 1,260,000 results

My reaction is to throw my hands up in the air and give up. As a consumer I would either end up spending a lot of money to hire someone to help me, or my parents would end up moving in the first available housing alternative I could find for them. Keep in mind, the first may not be the most appropriate or the most affordable, just the easiest.

I received a distress call last week from a woman who was trying to help her parents move from the "north woods" to St. Paul. She said she had spent some time trying to do some research on the internet to get some information on senior housing in the Twin Cities, but was having a really hard time locating anything that was remotely useful.  I told her that was pretty normal, there isn't one comprehensive housing search for senior housing in the Twin Cities (although I've started one at TheSeniorHousingSearch.com). 

We got together today and came up with a plan of attack. First item of business was to get rid of the 307,000,000 senior service articles she printed out from the internet. Yikes, who wouldn't be overwhelmed!

She had four to-do items

1. Talk with her parents about their financial situation and determine if they can move before their house is sold.
2. Look through the senior housing directory I gave her, and identify three different senior communities to contact and visit.
3. Look through email reports of current listings that were in 55+ communities.
4. Contact me after the first of the year, and we would come up with the next steps.

Helping your parents move is simple, but it sure isn't easy. Our family dynamics tend to keep things interesting too, but that's another post.

Tip for the day...instead of trying to learn everything there is to learn  about available senior services, identify your next three steps and take action on them.  Perhaps one of your next steps is to simply pick up the phone and call someone who works with seniors and ask them for some advice?