The WAPO article on this issue deals primarily with Washington DC, however this is an issue that is affecting every state and most cities across this nation. What used to be seldom done is now becoming a common place occurrence in this economic wasteland.
“We haven’t seen anything like this since the Depression,” said Frances Goldscheider, a Brown University sociologist who has studied families and living arrangements. “Overwhelmingly, it’s the recession’s effect on people’s ability to maintain a house. You have the foreclosures on one hand, and no jobs on the other. That’s a pretty double whammy.”
The number of adult children living with their parents — one slice of the phenomenon — soared in the Washington suburbs and in the District compared with a decade ago. The biggest increase was in Virginia, which experienced a 45 percent leap. In Maryland, the jump was 40 percent; in the District, 29 percent.
I have my own experience with this new way of life.
The article dated August 18, 2011
Increasingly, adult children are returning home after decades away.
Four generations — plus two dogs and a cat — now live in the home of Beverly Braun and her husband, Skip Loescher.
When the couple retired a few years ago, they sold their Capitol Hill house and moved to a three-bedroom home in Annapolis. Braun’s mother moved in with them after they converted the garage to a one-bedroom apartment for her. And last year, her daughter, Leslie de Vries, moved in with her two teenage children after she got divorced and lost her home to foreclosure in Sacramento, where she had lived for 25 years. Braun’s granddaughter has since moved out, but her 18-year-old grandson has a “man cave” in the basement, while de Vries sleeps in a spare bedroom.
In my own families case it started back in April 2011 when I had the near miss on the heart attack that nearly killed me, my wife called my younger brother who was between jobs in California as a waste water treatment operator, licensed by the state of California. She needed help with caring for me when I was finally released from MUSC after being told my heart ejection fraction was now 10%, and I was not eligible for either a VLAD device (same type of device Dick Cheney has) or for a heart transplant or a heart and lung transplant, I was told medication only and a biventricular pacemaker, this should be done by Sep 1st.
While I was in the ICU in June from the 8th -28th with another bout of CHF, my wife's cousin Ricky moved in after his family threw him out he has been waiting on his SSD to be approved for almost 2 years, he has started getting his monthly SSD checks but not the 2 years of back pay he needs to buy a vehicle or get a place of his own to live, also at the end of June my daughter moved back home with her 2 kids, she now lives in the pool house.
I am not a wealthy man, I get a SSD check and a 100% VA Compensation check, but they are family and I have room for them, I can't exactly throw them out on the streets, and I know I am fortunate to be able to help them, but the selfish part of me will be grateful when they get their lives back on track and move on to better and greater things.
Then again this does seem to be the new normal and maybe it will get worse before it gets better.