My generation is sometimes known for living too much in the present, which I guess beats thinking too much of the past. I do not have a crystal ball, but tend to look towards the future. Some people would call it being proactive others would think it strange to look ahead to a date in time when I might not even be alive. Putting together demographics numbers for me makes sense. So let me play with this a little and see if you catch my drift.
Some of us by the year 2030-2035 will manage to be 80+ years old. If all those surveys are right, 80-90% of us will be trying to stay at home. Currently the average age of those in assisted living is 86, in nursing homes 89-90. That says that already folks are managing to stay independent for a longer time either by financial necessity or conscious choice. Success in doing so may depend on the availability of family resources and the quantity and quality of services in the community where you live.
A huge part of that managing to stay at home, may be having access to affordable home care. Home health care aides come into you or your family member’s home to do chores, help with bathing, cooking, shopping or generally make life at home a safe place. Currently there is a 50% yearly turn over rate for workers in this industry. Home health care aide is one of the fastest growing part of the employment market but one of the most under paid. There is no real certification or professional organization to do training or lobby for better wages and working conditions. The workers are mainly female with a falling population demographic in age range of 20-40’s , with part time hours and no benefits. More of us, less of them as time goes on.
There are an ever growing number of new home health care franchisees. In terms of cute names I think Visiting Angels is the most interesting, as there may have to be supernatural creatures to come and do this work. Enter into this mix, a bright new shinny star, the Hometeam. A young man, Josh Bruno, age 29 has chosen as his career not Wall Street , but creating full time jobs with a living wage, training and benefits out of taking care of old folks.
He has harnessed some serious funding from some big names to grow his private enterprise. He is currently operating in just three states NY, PA and NJ and hires only 1% of those he interviews for the positions. They provides training and of course, somebody has an iPad. Got to have some tech in there.
You can read all about it in this article. http://fortune.com/2016/02/18/hometeam-josh-bruno/ and be glad that someone is attempting something different. The agency still charges to $20 an hour but it should produce a better situation for all involved.
One of the reasons I started this website is to help people see the value of connecting, whether online or in the village network mode. Another reason is hopefully to lobby on down the road for better regulation and government funding of this service ( not covered under Medicare). So someone from the private sector may be leading the way. Kudos! I sincerely hope his venture does not go the way of some of the silver tech companies that have crash and burned. It needs to take off and fly!
