Former Rep. Bill Hudson and his wife Lucy wanted to stay in Juneau, but they couldn’t.
When Lucy developed frontal-lobe dementia and needed what Bill described as “total care,” they had to look elsewhere.
“We were not able to find that here,” Bill said Thursday. “I did everything.”
It wasn’t that Juneau wasn’t just without suitable options, Hudson said, but it was without any options. The Juneau Pioneer Home provides housing for seniors, but the wait list is so full that people wait many years to get in. He and Lucy moved to Colorado four months ago, leaving behind the city of which they’d become such active members.
Sioux Douglas, the president of Senior Citizen Support Services, Inc., said Hudson isn’t an isolated case. Douglas spoke at Thursday’s Juneau Chamber of Commerce luncheon about this issue and what can be done to fix it. Hudson happened to be in town this week and sat in on the talk.
A main goal of SCSSI is to get an assisted living facility called Riverview Senior Community up and running to help ameliorate this problem. Riverview would be an 88-bed facility for seniors in need of assistance and memory care.
She frequently gets what she called “heartbreaking” phone calls of people asking to be put on a waiting list for the community, and she records names and numbers on a piece of paper next to her phone. Many of them, such as Lucy Hudson, need to find assistance soon and end up leaving Juneau.
Douglas, speaking to a room at the Moose Lodge that was packed with businesspeople, pointed out that this problem is not only jarring for the community in an emotional sense, but also in an economic sense.
“Not only do we lose their wisdom, their histories, their cultures, their experiences,” Douglas said, “we lose their wealth, because they take their portfolios with them.”
Douglas said that with the senior population in Juneau (and the state) rising rapidly, keeping seniors in Juneau would “profoundly” affect the local economy.
According to the Alaska Commission on Aging’s annual report for the 2016 fiscal year, Alaska’s senior population is growing the fastest of any state in the nation, and has been for the past seven years. Retired seniors, the report states, contribute $2.4 billion every year to Alaska’s economy, and the retirement industry is responsible for 13,000 jobs statewide.
Douglas said that this economic effect justifies the involvement from the City and Borough of Juneau.
“CBJ can help stop the leakage from our tax base that occurs when our elder residents move out of town for a fundamental service they should be getting here,” Douglas said.
SCSSI has asked the city to help fund the project, which is estimated at around $25 million. Douglas hopes the city can underwrite (basically guarantee the financing of the project, perhaps through a bond). The CBJ Finance Committee will be discussing the issue at its Sept. 13 meeting, after having finance staffers look into it. Douglas hopes to begin construction next spring, saying “we can’t wait any longer.”
This problem, Douglas argued, is not waiting on the distant horizon. It’s here already, and the effects of seniors such as the Hudsons leaving Juneau will be felt sooner rather than later.
“In 1970, Juneau was a community where one in 20 residents was seniors,” Douglas said. “We’re fast approaching a big demographic change where one in five will be seniors. Some of you don’t like this expression, but I’m gonna say it. The silver tsunami is here.”
• Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at alex.mccarthy@juneauempire.com.
