YORK — With its senior citizen population rising, York County is seeing an increasing need for housing and services, especially in its lower end.
Upper York, like the rest of the greater Williamsburg area, has always had a high proportion of seniors compared to the rest of the county. But the numbers in lower York are increasing as well, according to Tim Cross, principal planner for York County.
The 2000 Census showed that 14.2 percent of the upper York population was 65 or older, compared to 8.1 percent in lower York. Ten years later, census data showed a slight increase to 14.4 percent in upper York while lower York had jumped to 11.6 percent, according to Cross.
Overall projections show the number of seniors in York steadily rising from 24 percent of the population in 2010 to 30 percent in 2020 and 33 percent by 2030, according to the Williamsburg Community Health Foundation.
Two senior living developments are under construction in York, but one has had age restrictions lifted on parts of it due to lack of demand.
The York County Board of Supervisors in 2006 approved the age-restricted Reserve at Williamsburg on Mooretown Road for up to 459 units, including the 120-unit Verena apartment complex, according to Cross.
In 2013, the developers came back to the county to ask that the age restriction be removed from the remaining 339 units.
“While the national economic recession had something to do with it, the fact is that the market for this senior housing product had not lived up to their expectations,” Cross wrote in an email. “Since then, with the age restriction removed, the second phase of the project seems to be doing quite well, based on the pace of single-family home sales in the development.”
The other development, the Crossings at the Peninsula, is still in the tree-clearing phase at the intersection of Victory Boulevard and Hampton Highway.
York-Poquoson Social Services is not seeing recent increases in seniors receiving public assistance, but is experiencing increases in the number and complexity of adult services cases, according to director Kimberly Irvine.
The closing of Madison Retirement Center in Williamsburg in 2013 and several other assisted-living facilities operated by the same owner has made it difficult to find places for lower-income adults in assisted-living facilities, according to Irvine.
The number of Medicaid enrollees age 55 or older that social services served in August 2015 was 4 percent higher than a year earlier. The total number of adult services cases reached its highest point in five years this year at 613.
Irvine explained that a large number of retirees, though they are not necessarily low-income, affects her organization in terms of adult services cases. That’s not public assistance, but services specifically for older adults that social services provides.
“There’s definitely an increase in those types of case,” Irvine said. “Guardianship, cases that we open for self neglect, people with dementia who need assistance — we do a lot of coordination of services with our community partners.
“Some don’t qualify for assistance, but are disabled and need help with ADL (activities of daily living) or those kinds of issues.”
The department also handles some cases of financial exploitation of senior citizens as well.
“So many people come here for the schools, and then we’ve got this aging population,” Irvine said. “We kind of have a unique population here.”
The population doesn’t change much either, with the senior citizens a combination of retirees and residents aging in place.
“Some of that is because we really don’t have any affordable housing here for low-income residents, and we don’t really have places to place people, seniors in assisted living or nursing homes that would take Medicaid or auxiliary grant payments,” Irvine said. “There’s just no housing for them (low-income seniors) and there’s really not a lot of transportation options here to support that population.”
Williams can be reached at 757-247-4644.
