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More Americans are entering old age without children, spouses or other close relatives to lean on. They're known as solo agers, and their numbers are expected to rise as younger generations get older. Advocates say the shift is also an opportunity to rethink how communities and support systems are designed. Ashley Milne-Tyte reports.
ASHLEY MILNE-TYTE: As a professional patient advocate, Ailene Gerhardt hears a lot of stories. And during the last several years, she's heard more and more from people getting older without adult children, a spouse or both. She says the healthcare system is stuck in the past, assuming older people have family to support them, but that's often not the case. Gerhardt runs a network called Navigating Solo.
AILENE GERHARDT: Instead of looking at the concept of solo aging as something that's a crisis to be solved - it's not a crisis to be solved. It's a reality to be supported.
MILNE-TYTE: She says to take one example of that reality. Rather than assume every patient has someone who can pick them up from a medical appointment after being under anesthetic and drive them home, she says why can't the onus be on the healthcare system to arrange transport and an escort?
GERHARDT: Let's look at designing the system or redesigning the system so that anyone and everyone can have strong support. Quite honestly, that benefits everyone.
MILNE-TYTE: She says acknowledging solo agers' reality makes them feel less invisible. Jason Resendez is CEO of the National Alliance for Caregiving. He says there is growing recognition in some parts of government that many people are aging by themselves. That said, cuts are coming to home-based services for older adults and to Medicaid.
JASON RESENDEZ: Which makes it a lot harder to age in place when you don't have a family caregiver to absorb the elimination of those social service supports.
MILNE-TYTE: Carl Smigielski was a family caregiver to his husband, Moshe, who died in 2019. He's 61, lives alone in Richmond, Rhode Island, and expects it to stay that way.
CARL SMIGIELSKI: Right now, it wouldn't align with me to have another intimate relationship. So I was pretty clear, like, you're going to be doing this alone.
MILNE-TYTE: But he's gotten involved with an organization that has long recognized solo agers. It's called The Villages, and it consists of hyperlocal groups, called villages, that are mostly run by volunteers. Members join to tap the network's resources. Volunteers make it happen, with rides to appointments, help moving furniture or changing light bulbs, and social events.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: There's Barbara (ph). Hey, you're back from Florida.
MILNE-TYTE: Smigielski is helping to start a new village in his rural part of the state. He's come to this community center to explain the concept to a group of older adults over lunch.
SMIGIELSKI: In many ways, if someone does transition to assisted living, there's services there. It's those of us living independently where there's a gap.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Yeah.
MILNE-TYTE: Smigielski, a software engineer, says he's not an obvious candidate for a network like this. He enjoys his own company and doesn't expect to need help changing light bulbs for decades.
SMIGIELSKI: But the social support, regardless of how able we are, that's intrinsic to us, and I went through my battles of thinking I was an exception to that rule. I could be the human who didn't need social connection 'cause I don't need a lot of it. But I need it.
MILNE-TYTE: Right now, his 87-year-old mother still drives him to hospital appointments and can sign him out if she needs to. But eventually, he expects to tap the network he's helping create to sustain him as he gets older. For NPR News, I'm Ashley Milne-Tyte.
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