Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Two Cape Cods: Hidden Poverty on the Cape and Islands - Part 12

Cape Cod is often seen as an ideal location to retire. In fact, the retiree community has increased dramatically in the past twenty years. However, for many elderly residents ? particularly those who've lived most of their lives here &emdash; the rising costs of living on the Cape are insurmountable.

For seventy-year old retired librarian Bob Russells, the hot dog and baked bean plate Jeanne Decker just served him at the Harwich Community Center is more than just filling, it is a key component of his retirement plan.

Bob Russells: "I have some ways to hopefully keep costs down. I don't go out that much. I take advantage of the HCOA, the meals. We have, fortunately, the lower Cape Cod tech students have this restaurant three times a week where you can have reasonably priced meals."

Jeanne Decker puts down her coffee pot and says she has her own ways of keeping costs down and getting by as a retired person on Cape Cod.

Jeanne Decker: "I try to clip the coupons, but I am very cautious when I do shop. They have two items there at Stop & Shop that really help me. One is the vegetables that are a day old, and I can get five pounds of potatoes for a $1.99, same with peppers and those things I like. Same thing with the breads. I can get breads that are three dollars, are down to $1.50, now that's what I do, and I freeze it."

Since she retired five years ago, Decker says it's become a necessity to watch and consider every dollar that comes her way.

Jeanne Decker: "I got two notices the other day in the mail from one of my credit card companies they were going from a 7.99 [percent] to a 10.47. And the next envelope from the same company said I could borrow from my credit line, for as long as it takes me to pay it off at 3.99, so you know I was going to take advantage of that and take what I could from them at 3.99. What I will use that money for is to pay my electric bill when it comes due and I will pay off the one credit that I pay off each month, and that's my food bill."

For a growing number of Cape Cod seniors, retirement has not been the life of leisure they may have expected. Penny Bustard, the outreach coordinator at the Harwich Council on Aging, says the rising costs of medications, fuel, and food have caught many retirees by surprise, especially the oldest ones. For example, this past year, more Harwich seniors applied for fuel assistance than at any other time in the past.

Penny Bustard: "The younger ones that have just retired seem to be pretty well fixed, presently. The older seniors are worried that they are going to run out of their money, and one of the ways they can stop this from happening is to get a reverse mortgage because most of them have homes they have paid for. A lot of people don't want to do that because they wanted their home to go to their children, but I don't think they are finding that is going to be a possibility."

For retirees, the rapid rise in property values has been both a blessing and a curse. Cash-strapped seniors can get loans and borrow off of their home equity to pay bills. But the increased values also mean younger family members cannot afford to live in the area to serve as caregivers. Young people are leaving the area and the oldest generations say it is becoming difficult to find reasonably priced plumbers and handy men. But despite all the of the problems associated with rising property values, Harwich resident Bob Russells says retirees guard the values of their homes with great zeal because for many, it's their most important source of retirement income.

Bob Russells: "I don't know, a lot of us now you're thirty-two, right? At your age, a lot of people are going to be thinking, affordable housing, decent prices, build more rental units. But everybody's afraid their property values are going to go down. This is controversial, but what the heck. It's my feeling, ever since 1980 and the stupid idea of these conservative economics, this is all the market can bear for housing and prices. It's not right."

With higher home values come higher taxes. Communities have programs that exempt qualified seniors from a portion of their property taxes. However, according to David Scannell, the deputy assessor for Harwich, while the average property tax exemption is about $500 the average property tax bill hovers around $2,000.

David Scannell: "Some of our seniors have very limited income. We get people that have social security payments of only $7000 a year. And they are trying to live in our town on $7000 a year. And we do everything we can to let them live in their house as long as they can with those kinds of financial restraints on them."

Barnstable County has the distinction of leading the state in the number of house foreclosures. According to ForeclusuresMass, in the twelve-month period ending April 30, 2006, banks foreclosed on 583 properties in the county, a 60% increase from the previous twelve months. The reason for the increase, housing experts say, is that year-round residents are over-leveraging their home equity to get cash. And it's starting to catch up with them.