Affordable housing for seniors

[Anonymous]

My MIL is 65 and she works full time in a very demanding (mentally and physically) job. She manages people and is on her feet all day (not retail). She makes decent money, I'd say around 55-60k but has no retirement, no savings and literally lives paycheck to paycheck (sometimes falling short before the next payperiod). She works long days and puts in about 50 hours a week.

We make decent money but have minimum savings and two children. My SIL has been unemployed for almost three years and is no position to help financially. MIL is paying $1600/month for a crappy apartment in Silver Spring. SIL really wants to get her out of that apartment into something cheaper and possibly more senior friendly (her apartment has lots of steps and she has hip and arthritis issues). SIL and her would never be able to live together (we suggested to both that they look for an apartment together and both of their responses were HELL NO!) Hubby and I have a very small house that is barely big enough for the four of us. Realistically because of her health issues we are estimating that she can only keep up this work pace for another 3 to 5 years. She will have no retirement when she stops working, only Social Security. Since she will be on a fixed income SIL really wants to prepare her for this now so that when it happens there will not be an urgent situation.

MIL is very financially irresponsible. SIL has been the victim of this many times, thus Really wants to get things together now in preparation because she (and dh) are always in a scramble to fix whatever mess MIL has created. Example, she was evicted from her last apartment but did not tell us until the evening before she had to get out. We had to move her in one afternoon with less than 12 hours notice. It was not fun! One time she used SIL's SS number to gain credit. SIL's car died and needed a new car. She was denied the loan and found out she had an unpaid bill that went to collections. MIL denied knowing anything about it but eventually it came out that she opened and used that line of credit.

In any case, SIL went looking at some apartments last weekend and was pretty discouraged. Places that she found that were acceptable were around $1400/month. That's not much of a savings, although I guess if you look at it over a year it seems a little more appealing. Any suggestions or ideas on places to look? Perhaps there are resources we are not aware of that can help or assist with this?

[Anonymous]

http://www.habitatamerica.com/apt_victoryforest.html

http://www.habitatamerica.com/apt_willowmanor_colesville.html

Here's a list of places close to Silver Spring but not in Silver Spring (Olney, Laurel, Rockville).
http://www.seniorhousingnet.com/seniorliving-search/silver-spring_md?source=web

[Anonymous]

Thank you!

[Anonymous]

Are you looking at senior housing? I know there's some affordable senior complexes in Silver Spring but I can't remember their names offhand.

[Anonymous]

Some of the affordable senior housing is HUD housing for low-income seniors, and your MIL doesn't sound low income, at least to meet their standards. Maybe she could do a house share with another senior, so that she will save and the other senior (who owns the home) will save money too.