The Senior Scene

(Pictured: A survey of older adults finds the ones in best health have close friends).

For adults over 50, maintaining close friendships isn’t just about having someone to chat with over coffee – it could be integral to their health and well-being.

A new study reveals a stark reality: While 75 percent of older adults say they have enough close friends, those saying they’re in poor mental or physical health are significantly less likely to maintain these vital social connections. The study paints a concerning picture of how health challenges can create a cycle of social isolation, potentially making health problems worse.

The University of Michigan’s National Poll on Healthy Aging, conducted last August, surveyed 3,486 adults between 50 and 94, offering an in-depth look at how friendships evolve in later life and their crucial role in supporting well-being. The results highlight a complex relationship between health status and social connections that many may not realize.

“With growing understanding of the importance of social connection for older adults, it’s important to explore the relationship between friendship and health and identify those who might benefit most from more interaction,” said Sarah Patterson, a University of Michigan demographer.

Patterson, a research assistant professor at the university’s Institute for Social Research, emphasized the critical nature of understanding social connections. She noted 90 percent of adults over 50 said they have at least one close friend, with 48 percent maintaining one to three close friendships and 42 percent enjoying the company of four or more. However, these numbers drop dramatically for those facing health challenges. Among individuals in fair or poor mental health, 20 percent have no close friends at all – double the overall rate.

The gender divide in friendship is notable, researchers said. Men are more likely than women to report having no close friends. Age also plays a role, with those 50 to 64 more likely to report no close friendships compared to their older counterparts – a somewhat counterintuitive finding that challenges assumptions about social isolation  increasing with age.

When it comes to staying in touch, modern technology has helped keep connections alive. In the month before the survey, 78 percent of older adults had in-person contact with close friends, while 73 percent connected over the phone and 71 percent used text messages. It suggests that older adults are adapting to new ways of being connected.

The study’s findings resonate with AARP, one of the study’s supporters.

“Strong social connections can encourage healthier choices, provide emotional support, and help older adults navigate health challenges, particularly for those at greater risk of isolation,” said Indira Venkat, senior vice president of research at AARP

Perhaps most striking is the role that close friends play in supporting health and well-being. Among those with at least one close friend, 79 percent say they can definitely count on friends for emotional support in good times or bad, and 70 percent feel confident discussing health concerns with their friends. These aren’t just casual relationships – they’re vital support systems that can influence health behaviors and outcomes, researchers said.

Consider this: 50 percent of older adults say their close friends encouraged them to make healthy choices, such as exercising more or eating a healthier diet. Another 35 percent say friends motivated them to get health issues checked out by a healthcare provider, and 29 percent received encouragement to stop unhealthy behaviors like poor eating habits or excessive drinking.

What’s more, 32 percent had friends who helped them when sick or injured, 17 percent had friends pick up medications for them, and 15 percent had friends attend medical appointments with them, underscoring how friendship can function as informal healthcare support systems.

But researchers said the study reveals a challenging paradox: Making and maintaining friendships becomes more difficult precisely when people might need them most.

Among those reporting fair or poor mental health, 65 percent and 61 percent, respectively, of older adults say making new friends and maintaining existing friendships is harder now than when they were younger. Seventy-five percent still want to develop new friendships, particularly those who live alone and report feeling lonely.

The study also reveals a trend toward friendships between people of different age groups. Among those with at least one close friend, 46 percent have one from a different generation (at least 15 years older or younger). This suggests that meaningful connections transcend age gaps, researchers said.

The study’s participants were multi-ethnic, including Caucasians, Blacks, Hispanics, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. They were surveyed online or by phone.

Source: StudyFinds, an online (studyfinds.org) hub for reports on scientific research. Its founder is Steve Fink, a former television editor for CBS.

(Pictured: Maryann Griffin and Sandra Mears hang a picture in the Seattle-area home they moved to in May. Photo credit: Genna Martin/Cascade PBS)

By Josh Cohen/Cascade PBS

Sandra Mears and Maryann Griffin loved their little cottage in West Seattle’s Delridge neighborhood. They had a beautiful garden, good neighbors, and a sense of community. It was exactly the sort of place they’d sought after decades of living in apartments around the city; the sort of place they could imagine living in forever.

But after about five years in their dream home, they learned the owners were selling and they had to move out. As renters, they had no say in the matter. And as a couple with modest means and little savings, they were unable to purchase the home.

Mears has worked in homelessness services for more than 30 years. She leads a small non-profit called the Jean Kim Foundation in Lynnwood that provides hygiene services and operates a tiny-home village. Griffin is a decade older, retired and collecting Social Security. She spent her career mostly in customer service and later at a work-release program for people transitioning out of incarceration.

After hearing their cottage was being sold, they went through the expensive and laborious task of finding and moving to a new place in West Seattle. The couple stayed for about six years in that home before once again learning the owners were planning to sell. The new owner asked them to stay, but they planned to eventually redevelop the property, making it a temporary reprieve.

That was about four years ago. Mears and Griffin left Seattle entirely and found a new rental in downtown Snohomish where they paid $2,000 a month plus utilities. In January, it was déjà vu when their landlord let them know they were selling the home and that the couple had 90 days to move.

None of their moves have been easy. But leaving their place in Snohomish has been an expensive, stressful ordeal. Rents are higher than ever, move-in costs are challenging, and their options feel limited.

Theirs is a story about the instability of being modest-income renters in a booming housing market; the sparseness of the social safety net; the irony that working in homelessness services pays too little to guarantee housing stability; and the politics of housing development.  

“Forget staying at the Edgewater (Hotel) or traveling, my bucket list now is to not be homeless,” Mears said.

Data analysis by AARP shows 6,889 adults 55 and older are expected to experience homelessness this year in Washington. The homeless population is getting older nationally and locally. The median home sale price in King County has topped $1 million. Median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the Seattle metro area is nearly $1,900 a month.

“We have skyrocketing housing costs” in the Puget Sound region, said Cathy McCaul, AARP Washington’s advocacy director. “The more marginalized and more vulnerable in the community are feeling more susceptible to these shifts. Especially if you’re on a fixed income it is doubly, triply, more difficult to maintain stable housing.”

Mears and Griffin have staved off homelessness  — for now. They found a furnished home in Northgate marketed for traveling nurses. It’s $2,400 per month, with utilities included. They’re also paying $200 a month for a storage space for their personal furniture that doesn’t fit in the furnished unit.

They’re on a three-month lease that becomes month to month after that. Mears described their situation as “rather tenuous,” but is too emotionally and financially drained from the previous house hunt to keep searching for a longer-term solution right now.

Before they settled for the Northgate house, Mears and Griffin cast a wide net: Searching as far north as Mount Vernon, joining Facebook groups with rental listings, talking to real estate companies, asking friends and acquaintances for leads.

Mears found the process frustrating. Applying for places means paying $50 per person for background checks that aren’t transferable among applications.

“It used to be that we could see a home and talk to the landlord and could court them, if you will,” said Mears. “Now it’s flipped. You can’t even see a home until you fill out an application.”

Mears says she spent nearly $8,000 on the move to Northgate after paying for first and last month’s rent, the security deposit, movers, cleaners, application fees, and unexpected costs.

To help pay for the moving costs, Mears took out money from the small IRA she’s managed to save. She says working in homelessness services her whole career has made it challenging to put away money and essentially impossible to buy a home in Seattle. She attempted to buy the West Seattle dream cottage, but it was out of her price range.

Having been forced to move far more often than she’d like, Mears has a few thoughts on how the process could be improved for renters. For one, it would help to require landlords to return security deposits faster. In 2023, Washington started requiring landlords to return a deposit, or provide an explanation for not returning it, within 30 days. Mears said when money’s tight and you’re trying to apply for new rentals that also require deposits, it would help to have that money within two to three weeks.

She also thinks the requirement that a landlord provide a tenant with at least 90 days move-out notice should be longer if the tenant has lived there a long time. Say if the tenant lives somewhere for multiple years, require a 120-day notification.

Mears also wants changes to the current requirement that each would-be tenant plunk down $50 for a background and credit check on each rental application; instead, applicants should be able to pay for one background check transferable from application to application.

Sean Flynn doesn’t think those changes would necessarily help, or at least that there would be tradeoffs. Flynn is executive director of the Rental Housing Association of Washington, which represents small to mid-size landlords. More notice would just result in a tenant house-hunting too early, so that any open units someone is looking at likely wouldn’t be available when it’s time to move. On security deposits, Flynn said it used to take 14 days, but legal requirements for landlords to provide more details about what they’re using the money for extended the process. And finally, on background checks, he said many of their members use a product called SmartMove that allows some portions of screenings to be reused for a period of time, but that credit checks are a federal regulatory issue. 

More broadly, Flynn argued that the rental market needs to be stabilized with more housing supply and by keeping existing rental units on the market. He said many landlords have sold off their single-family rentals in response to new state and local regulations. 

“There are real problems” with the housing market, said Flynn. “People need their housing stabilized. But what we’ve done with regulations in the last 10 years has created a lot of problems for people.”

AARP’s Washington chapter has done lobbying around housing stability and supply at the state and local level. The organization worked on legalizing accessory dwelling units (ADU) statewide, which the Legislature passed in 2023. ADUs can provide space for multi-generational families to live on the same property, allow older residents to collect additional income that helps offset rising housing costs, or enable a caretaker to live on-site.

AARP also supported the statewide “missing middle” zoning bill that legalized duplexes, quadplexes and sixplexes in all residential neighborhoods in Washington. “It’s about letting older adults have more choices for housing options,” said AARP’s McCaul.

The organization also worked on the Legislature’s co-living bill, which makes it easier to build dorm-style apartments and shared living and cooking spaces. The buildings are typically built with 20-something tech workers in mind. But, says McCaul, people in their 60s and 70s want the same amenities–affordable rents, good locations, space to host friends and family, and ability to connect with neighbors.   

“People want parks, walkable communities,” said McCaul. “Community is about creating a space where everyone belongs. And small changes can make it accessible, affordable, and easy for everyone to live here.”

AARP also worked on a bill to raise the eligibility threshold for Washington’s low-income elderly property tax break. Under the new law, the threshold in King County increased from about $58,000 to $72,000.

In addition to lobbying, AARP also works on making sure people are accessing all the benefits they qualify for, such as the property tax break, SNAP food assistance and rental assistance. McCaul said they’re working with senior centers to try and connect more people to benefits.

Mears said that ultimately she and Griffin are thankful for the roof over their heads, and acknowledge that plenty of people are in even more precarious situations. “I don’t want pity,” she said, but added, “When you’re not stabilized, you’re not your best self.”

Source: Cascade PBS, a non-profit news organization covering the Pacific Northwest.

(Pictured: Former Washington governor and U.S. senator Dan Evans, at an event in Olympia in April, five months before his death. Photo credit: David Ryder/Cascade PBS)

By Knute Berger

Cascade PBS

In many ways, three-term Washington governor and U.S. senator Dan Evans, who died at age 98 in October, was the Goldilocks politician.

While centrism is out of fashion these days — too often seen as overly compromising or wishy-washy — Evans personified the politics of the “just right” middle. He was a pragmatic progressive Republican, a species once popular in Washington and Oregon.

Evans was also a former engineer who worked on the Alaskan Way Viaduct. He was an Eagle Scout. A devoted family man, he lost his wife of 65 years, Nancy, in January.

Evans seemed to have been around forever. He was only 39 when inaugurated as governor  in 1965.

Evans adhered to reality-based decision-making, especially during his three four-year gubernatorial terms (1965-77). He was a fiscal conservative but supported a more equitable tax system. including an income tax. When California began shutting the door to Southeast Asian refugees, Evans opened Washington wide.

An avid outdoorsman, Evans hiked, climbed and was a passionate conservationist. He played major roles in the creation of North Cascades National Park, adding coastline to Olympic National Park and expanding wilderness areas in Washington. The Daniel J. Evans Wilderness in Olympic National Park is named for him.

In the spring of 1973, the youthful, vigorous governor rappelled off the 10-story concrete clock tower on the Evergreen State College campus. As a student journalist at the college, I ran out to watch him in case he fell. Ah, cynicism can come early to those of us in the journalism trade. He rappelled without incident.

In the spring of 2019, Evans led a group of Mainstream Republicans, non-MAGAs for the most part, and some journalists on a hike along the Alpine Wilderness trail. I went along, and Evans’ vigor at age 93 was on full display 46 years after his Evergreen clock stunt.

Evans pulled votes from both parties in elections and from both sides of the aisle in the Legislature. In his era, no politician was more respected, by both Republicans and Democrats. After leaving the governor’s mansion, he served one unsatisfying (for him) term in the U.S. Senate (1983-89) and retired from elective politics. He was frustrated by D.C. gridlock.

In addition to serving as president of Evergreen after he left the governor’s mansion, he became a University of Washington regent and served on many commissions and councils, often credited as a stabilizing and wise presence in regional decisionmaking. The UW’s Evans School of Public Policy and Governance is named for him.

His politics may seem baffling in the modern era of partisanship and division, like a survivor of a near-extinct species. He gave the keynote speech at the 1968 Republican national convention that nominated Richard Nixon or president, although Evans had endorsed liberal Republican Nelson Rockefeller. Evans was a fresh face in the party and continued to be seen that way. He was on Gerald Ford’s short list for vice president in 1976.

Evans didn’t support Donald Trump’s election or re-election bid as president, yet he refused to give up his GOP identity. I once asked him why he didn’t quit a party that had strayed so far from his core values. “Just stubborn, I guess,” he replied.

Evans cultivated GOP moderation in his cabinet as governor and continued to mentor Republicans who hadn’t given up on the possibility of electing common-sense candidates. Electeds like former GOP secretaries of state Ralph Munro, a former Evans aide, and Sam Reed, who fought with his own party over a so-called “stolen” election in 2004, were exemplars of the integrity that Evans represented and cultivated.

“Governor Dan” could get tough, though, especially during his campaign against the Democratic incumbent he defeated in 1964, Albert D. Rosellini. Evans kept above the fray, but his camp floated rumors about the governor’s alleged criminal associations and activities. Nothing was proven, but the allegations might have cost Rosellini a federal appointment after his loss to Evans.

Another campaign eyebrow-raiser, though hardly Evans’ fault: A young, clean-cut volunteer was tasked in 1972 with following Evans’ opponent around, recording his speeches and reporting on his events. That Evans operative’s name was Ted Bundy, before he became infamous as a serial killer.

The Evans era seems like a kind of political fairy tale for those who are nostalgic for saner, more reasonable politics. Too hot, too cold, will we ever find “just right” again? Many who remember those times might yearn for pragmatic decency as an essential criterion for running and holding office. Evans proved those could be winning qualities.

Knute Berger is an editor-at-large for Cascade PBS, a non-profit news organization covering the Pacific Northwest.

(Pictured: Kerri Foley is a volunteer with the American Red Cross Disaster Action Team.)

When people lost their  homes in a fire at a Lakewood apartment complex in July, the local chapter of the American Red Cross mobilized immediately to provide help and hope to the displaced residents. Red Cross volunteers set up individuals and families with overnight shelter for a safe place to stay, as well as meals, items of comfort, and community resources. 

Red Cross services like that are made possible by people like Kerri Foley. She has been with the Red Cross for about three years, serving as a Disaster Action Team volunteer.  

“I like to help people,” she said as she unloaded cots and other items for the Lakewood fire victims who were staying overnight in the Red Cross shelter. “This is just my way of giving back.”   

Every day, disasters force people from their homes. The Red Cross needs more people in Pierce, Thurston, and Kitsap counties to be volunteers and help local families cope with emergencies.  

Disaster Action Team (DAT) members respond day and night, most often in the aftermath of fires that threaten lives, destroy property, and displace entire families. While the work can be emotional and challenging, it’s also deeply rewarding, according to the Red Cross. A spokeswoman for the organization noted that volunteers provide support and assistance to people in their darkest moments. That helping hand includes emotional support, replacing prescription medications, financial assistance for food, clothing and temporary lodging, and other critically needed items or referrals. 

All required training for DAT is provided by the Red Cross free of charge. Information on how to get involved is at redcross.org.

Another example of the important role of volunteering is Kirby Engel, who has logged 3,360 hours of community service through the Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP). He’s one of 135 volunteers who are helping various organizations in Pierce and Kitsap counties via the program administered locally by Lutheran Community Services Northwest.

“Our amazing volunteers have served 13,000 hours in the last 12 months alone,” said Rena Marken, supervisor of the program that pairs volunteers with schools, museums, medical providers, and food banks, among others.

One of the latter is the Tacoma-based Nourish Pierce County food banks, which hosted a ceremony Aug. 14 honoring Engel and five other RSVP participants who have individually racked up hours in the hundreds and thousands. Cheryl Fox and Jesme Fernando have 1,680 and 1,030 hours under their belts, respectively, Barbara Hadley has 469, Bruce Weathers has 383, and Carola Wittmann has 189.

The salute drew some dignitaries–Michael Smith, chief executive officer of AmeriCorps, the federal agency that supports volunteer programs like RSVP, and U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, who praised the “incredible work” of the volunteers.

Information on RSVP is available at lcsnw.org and 253-722-5695.