Is Vancouver a good place for older adults to live? According to caring.com, it’s not.
The website, which contains information about housing and support services for seniors, ranked Vancouver 258th out of 302 cities across the U.S.
Caring.com graded cities using 70 different metric across six categories: health care, senior housing, community involvement, transportation, quality of life and affordability.
Caring.com described Vancouver as a “scenic city” near Portland featuring an active arts scene and events such as the Fourth of July fireworks at Fort Vancouver and the Vancouver Wine and Jazz Festival. City residents age 50 and older can receive a free subscription to The Messenger newsletter and take part in trips, activities and classes, the website noted.
Vancouver ranked highest in community involvement, due to a social involvement index around the national average and a voting rate above average; the fact that Washington has mail-in and absentee ballot voting and a human rights commission also bumped up the score. Quality of life was also relatively high, particularly when it comes to access to parks and cultural, arts and entertainment institutions, and a crime rate below the national average.
The city’s poorest scores were in health care. Vancouver is low on primary care physicians and other providers. Affordability, traffic congestion and air quality also received poor marks from caring.com.
Julie Piper Finley said the ranking is sad but makes sense based on what she’s gleaned as director of marketing and communications for Meals on Wheels People, which delivers prepared meals to local seniors needing food and companionship and runs a dining hall at Luepke Senior Center.
Among the things the Portland-based nonprofit tracks is the costs of housing, health care and prescription drugs.
“We like to figure out what other things are affecting their quality of life,” Piper Finley said of Meals on Wheels clients.
She’s not surprised, then, by Vancouver’s low ratings in the affordability and health care categories.
In some instances, she said, Meals on Wheels participants may be choosing between paying for a prescription or keeping the lights on, so volunteers are equipped with information about programs, such as food pantries or low-income home energy assistance.
“Unfortunately the constituency we serve have to make those choices,” Piper Finley said.
She noted that caring.com’s survey doesn’t take into account what draws people to settle in places like Vancouver, such as its mild weather and slower pace of life. The vast majority of seniors want to remain in their current community and residence for as long as possible. Recent U.S. Census Bureau estimates say 14.7 percent of Vancouver’s population is 65 or older, and that figure is growing.
Contrary results
David Kelly, executive director of the Area Agency on Aging & Disabilities of Southwest Washington, said caring.com’s findings fly in the face of other independent reviews lauding Washington as one of the best places for seniors. In 2017, for instance, AARP ranked Washington No. 1 in the nation for long term services and support. The organization also put Seattle as the third-most livable large community and Portland as the seventh. (Vancouver did not make AARP’s top-10 list of most livable mid-sized communities.)
Kelly is wary of any report or survey from an entity that may have an ulterior motive or be trying to sell a solution to a purported problem.
The city could always do better, however. He said Vancouver is a fine place to grow old and it has fine senior facilities, albeit not enough. Kelly acknowledged that people, especially low-income seniors on fixed incomes, struggle with housing, medical and dental care and transportation.
“We need to do better with that,” he said.
Where he thinks Vancouver excels is in helping those who use Medicaid and live with adverse health challenges. Also, Kelly noted, private sector medical groups are sensitive to elderly populations in a positive way, and Washington State University Vancouver has a professor whose research topics include healthy aging and gerontology — and that has helped raise community awareness.
“Of course I’m kind of a bragger,” he said with a laugh.
Caring.com ranked San Francisco, Fredericksburg, Va., and Washington, D.C., among the best places for seniors to live.
