A Retirement Community That Comes to You

Carole Ann Basso had spent years tending to her ailing parents and disabled husband; at one point, all three were receiving hospice care in her northern New Jersey home.

 “It was so incredibly stressful,” recalled Ms. Basso, a retired high school history teacher. “I didn’t want to give my children that craziness.”

So when she relocated to the small bayside town of Lewes, Del., in 2012, after her parents’ and husband’s deaths, her own future weighed on her mind.

At 69, Ms. Basso had a long-term care insurance policy and a modest pension, but scant savings, which had prompted her move to a lower-cost region.

She wondered, “How am I going to take care of myself?” In Lewes, she heard about another option in long-term care offered by a few pioneering continuing care retirement communities: a C.C.R.C. without walls.

Typically, a C.C.R.C. operates a complex or campus where residents shift from independent living to assisted living, a memory-care unit or a nursing home if their health and mobility decline. But in continuing care at-home programs, members essentially spend the independent living years in their own houses.

 In 2015, Ms. Basso joined a program called Springpoint Choice that allows her to stay in her comfortable ranch house with an also-aging English setter named Princess Leia. Diane Willoughby, her “care navigator,” checks in regularly to monitor her needs.

 With luck, Ms. Basso, now 76, may remain in her home for years — or for good. If she eventually requires help with bathing, dressing or other so-called activities of daily living, the program will provide home aides.

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A Retirement Community That Comes to You