Bridging The Gap for Local Retirees Planning for
the Golden Years Retirement today is a bit like choosing bread in a bakery, says Lillian Morgenthau, president of the Canadian Association of Retired Persons. "You can buy rye bread, brown bread, white bread, super-white bread." Similarly, retirement is not homogeneous, she said. It comes in many varieties. "If you are ill, and you are retired, you will need money for drugs and you may need money for going into a nursing home. If you are mobile and active, you may want money to go back to school, or to play golf," she said. The entire concept of retirement as we know it now in Canada emerged only around the beginning of the 20th century, said Joseph Tindale, a gerontology professor at the University of Guelph. Retirement, in the sense of getting the gold watch and leaving one’s place of employment at age 62 or 65, came about because of a number of different pressures, he said. People who worked on farms or were otherwise self-employed, for example, never really had a "retirement" age. They kept on working, and as they physically slowed down, their children took on more of the workload. But in factories, employers who were interested in speeding up the work process needed a way of getting rid of the older, slower employees. Furthermore, in the public civil service, there was growing pressure to get rid of the older employees who were seen as less productive. Also in labor unions, members were saying they did not want to work until they died. The combination of all of these pressures led to the establishment of retirement systems, and in the 1960s, the Canada Pension Plan and the Quebec Pension Plan were established. Tindale said those public pension systems get a bad rap today but in fact, they have been successful in reducing poverty among senior citizens. According to the National Advisory Council on Aging, poverty rates among seniors have dropped from 69.1 per cent in 1969 to 47.6 per cent in 1994. "If CPP and the Seniors’ Benefit (to mainly supplement incomes of seniors earning less than $40,000 a year) were to disappear, we’d be back to where we were in the 1920s," Tindale said. For Nicholas Gorka and his wife Carla, both of Kitchener, the retirement years are turning out to be some of the happiest of their lives. But it didn’t happen magically—they came to Canada in 1952 as "economic refugees" and knew the importance of saving for tomorrow. They also made a well-planned retirement move out of Toronto and into Kitchener, to cut costs. Gorka said as with any other generation, there are some in his age group who "spend like there is no tomorrow, and others who save everything." At seminars Gorka gives, which are part of a Rockway Seniors Centre series called Bridging the Gap, he talks about learning to live within a budget and careful investment. He wonders what kind of retirement awaits his 45-year-old son and others of the baby boom generation. But he would advise younger people to look at public pensions and changes to the retirement systems as moot points and try to put aside money for a rainy day. He said there are small ways in which most middle-income people can shave some of their expenses and set aside a bit more money—such as not going out for dinner as often and taking brown bag lunches to work. He also recommends safe, long-term investments for savings. "It’s a difficult thing because you have to make some choices," Gorka said. "No one can really say what you should do, because it has to come from you." John Hoselton and his wife Evelyn, both 70, who also give seminars at the Rockway Seniors Centre, find that even in their post-retirement age group now, many look for ways to supplement retirement income. "They are providing small personal services—snow-plowing, landscaping, carpentry, consulting work and other skills that can be offered on a part-time basis," Hoselton said. He believes there will be more of that in the future. "It will be a harsher world that our children are going to face, because they will have less ability to rely on publicly funded health services and other services," he points out. "I was connected with an oil company at a time when you started with a company as a young person, and you retired at age 65 and that was it. You had good times and bad times, but you stayed with the company. Now it’s much different." But Hoselton said from what he’s seen, people who are more flexible and have a broad network of friends and contacts throughout their work lives are happier in their senior years. So he’s hopeful that members of the younger generations, who are less likely to depend on one workplace for all of their friends, identity and pensions, will also have the flexibility to cope with future changes.
Bridging The Gap For Local Retirees The first six months of retirement are great—"like a honeymoon situation," according to Wilf Baxter, who adds with a laugh, "but then you’re faced with the fact that you can’t golf all of the time, so a degree of disenchantment can set in." Baxter, a former high-school principal, is chairman of Bridging the Gap, a non-profit program for retirees and pre-retirees, believed by him to be the only one of its kind in this area. Established in 1994 and offered at the Rockway Senior Centre on King Street East in Kitchener, Bridging the Gap consists of six two-hour workshops designed to help the newly retired, and the about-to-retire, adjust or prepare. Such a significant change in life comes more easily to some. "A lot of people ignore any trauma associated with retirement because they’re used to using their unscheduled time," Baxter admits. "But people who have been highly scheduled tend to run into problems in this area. "And I think as far as use of time goes, you want to wake up in the morning with something worthwhile for that day, and for some people that is an area of trauma." In an effort to help retirees through any disenchantment and on to "re-orientation and stabilization," Baxter and approximately 20 other volunteers deliver a curriculum that encompasses:
"With financial and legal aspects, we try to get people asking questions, and to prod them to look into their situation more deeply," Baxter explains. "We know from our research that this is the area of biggest concern. People think they won’t have enough money, and when they start looking at it, they realize it isn’t going to be so bad after all. "Because while it’s true income normally shrinks, so do expenses, on things like clothing, for instance. "It’s remarkable how many ideas the groups come up with for budgeting tips, or when looking at ways to cut back expenses." Because most of the exercises in these classes revolve around group work, they’re limited to 20 participants. Baxter says each group is diverse, with people ranging in age from their early 50s to 65. While holding the classes at Rockway Senior Centre is Bridging the Gap’s preference, the volunteers’ outreach work with various local corporations really caught my interest. They have given sessions at Budd Automotive, for instance, as well as 60-minute noonhour talks on site for the United Way, Unitron, Boehmers and La-Z-Boy. "We’ve found that’s a good way of making people aware of the program and attracting them to the main course," Baxter says. "And some companies, like Clarica, refer a lot of people to us." Happily, it’s not unheard of for businesses to pay a portion of the enrollment fee ($75 per couple or $45 per individual) for their employees. If you’re interested in Bridging the Gap at the Rockway Senior Centre—or you want to discuss the feasibility of introducing it to your workplace—call 741-2576.
Program
helps retirees ‘bridge the gap’ For some people, the transition from workforce to retirement is an easy one, but for many it is a giant perilous leap. To give pre-retirees an insight into what they can expect and enable them to anticipate changes and plan for them, a new program called Bridging the Gap is being developed, largely based on the experience of volunteers who have retired. “Although we touch on some financial aspects, such as
wills, the program focuses more on social and emotional needs,” said coordinator
Jo-Ann Hutchison. “Instead of professionals and experts, our facilitators are mainly
people who have gone through this experience (retirement) and can talk from the heart.
They are also there to follow-up on a one-to-one basis on request.” Bridging the Gap received a three-year grant, which will expire
in July 1997, from Health Promotions Canada. Funding comes from Venture in Independence,
now under the umbrella of New Horizons. The proposal for the grant was pulled together by the
Mayor’s Advisory Council and presented by Bev Aikenhead, manager of the City of
Kitchener Seniors and Special Needs Division. Kitchener Parks and Recreation is providing
office facilities at Breithaupt Centre. Volunteer board members include Norma Sims, chairwoman; Wilf
Baxter, executive secretary; Derek Cayton, treasurer, and members at large Raymond
Applebaum, Tony Shaman and Reg Wagland (industrial liaison). As a condition of the grant,
at least 50 per cent of board members must be retirees. Aikenhead, John Panunto of Kitchener’s human resources department, and
Stuart Summerhayes, program consultant for Health Promotions Canada in Kitchener, are
advisors. Sims, Baxter, Shaman and Dorothy St. Jean have formed a
committee to develop the program and materials for the workshops. These will comprise a resource manual for participants, a manual
on the program which will be available for sale to other communities and a motivational
book of short statements from retirees which will be used as a fund-raiser. (Contributions
of inspirational thoughts on retirement would be welcomed by the committee.) A pilot workshop was held last summer for Kitchener Transit
employees and another is scheduled for six weeks at Rockway Centre, beginning in March,
for Waterloo County board of education employees. Topics covered will be phases of retirement, life planning,
changing roles and relationships, health, leisure time opportunities, where to live, money
and legal affairs, community services and resources. A retired financial planner, Bob Lessard, conducts the financial sessions,
and a semi-retired real estate agent, Tony Shaman, discusses housing issues, Hutchison
said. “We also want to participate with other peer-help programs such as Living
Younger which is assisting us with the segment on health.” In addition, Bridging the Gap is working in partnership with the
Kitchener Public Library. Its materials will enhance the KPL collection of retirement
resources. The program covers three phases of retirement: “The honeymoon, during which retirees travel and do all the
things they dreamed of doing, usually lasts about six months to two years. Then they
run out of money or the second phase, disenchantment, sets in,” said Hutchison. “The third phase is re-orientation, setting new goals.
The gap we want to bridge is from near retirement through these phases to stability
by offering the workshop, one-to-one assistance and self-directed study.” Hutchison said people forced into early retirement, who have not
had time to plan, and working couples who retire at different times are also welcome. “We are approaching the business community as well to offer
workshops in the workplace for employees nearing retirement. “These people may get advice on money matters, but it is
the softer issues that people tend not to anticipate and are harder to plan for,” she
said. For further information, call Bridging the Gap at 741-2576. Jackie Hayes of Kitchener
writes each Tuesday. |