One of the odd consequences of the real estate crisis in the USA is how it is pushing the cost of senior housing to continue to rise. This happens because, as real estate prices plummet, investors or entrepreneurs or even existing senior care nursing facilities are scared away from building new facilities or conducting expansions. The result is an ever-growing gap between supply and demand—with less new senior housing to accommodate an aging population, it is becoming more and more prohibitively expensive to have your senior loved one stay in an assisted senior care facility.

Discussions regarding the affordability of a senior medical alert inevitably crops up whenever people speak of the financial facts surrounding the issue of nursing homes. This is so because compared with having to place your senior loved one in an assisted living facility, the price of a regular medical alert system is almost shockingly low—you can subscribe to even the best brand for less than a dollar a day, and that already includes 24/7 monitoring.

Senior Housing: Just the Facts

Perhaps one can best appreciate the whole issue of senior housing by looking at actual numbers. In 2008, for example, the monthly cost of having your senior loved one stay in an independent living housing was $2,572; a year later, in 2009, that figure was up by about a hundred dollars. Moreover, the cost of placing your aging parent in a nursing care home in 2008 was $7,493 a month; barely a year later, the cost would rise by more than two hundred dollars. Keep in mind that we are discussing average monthly rents all over the country—it may be lower or higher in the state you are in, but these averages give you an idea of how much it costs to take care of your senior loved one. If you’re lucky, you can find certain facilities that offer discounts or lower monthly fees, but such discounts can be availed usually by signing up on a medium-term basis, such as by paying on a quarterly basis or a six-month plan.

Medical Alerts: the Affordable Option

As previously mentioned, the case against senior housing becomes more and more compelling as prices continue to rise. On the other hand, the monthly fees charged by even the leading providers of any advanced senior medical alert stays at a stable rate of less than a dollar a day—sometimes just half of that.

Add to that is the fact that most seniors are still full of heart—they would not simply accept sitting around the house and would often insist on doing things on their own, as if they were still 40 years old. They may insist on mowing the lawn or cleaning the car, and at times, you may even find them on a ladder trimming a tree or cleaning the house’s gutter. This is natural: seniors would love to continue doing household chores in order to feel useful. And by preserving their sense of usefulness, you are actually helping them preserve their youth or keep them happy and self-satisfied. But then again, letting them work around the house comes at a price: there are safety and health issues involved, and you cannot simply attend to their needs and watch over them 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You have a life and a family who also need your attention.

That is why medical alerts are perfect for a wide range of age brackets—whether your parent is still able to move about and engage in physical activities, or they are using support devices such as a cane or a walker. Not that the price is the be-all and end-all of our considerations, such alert systems do indeed not cost thousands of dollars a month—the alert system service from a leading provider such as Rescue Alert of California costs only about 55 cents a day. Of course, such an alert system is by no means a complete replacement to the kind of round-the-clock, properly supervised care your senior loved one can enjoy at a nursing home, but in certain situations (such as the case described above), it can be just the right solution—and an affordable one, too.