The purpose of this study was to explore the benefits to aging and older homeowners who had the responsibility caring for adult family members with mental retardation to use the available equity in their family home as a funding option to making futures plans for the aging person they are responsible for. At the time of the study, less than 12,000 of the 17 million elderly homeowners had used reverse equity mortgages (rem) as a funding source for to enhance their later life years. Most older family caregivers who were asked about reverse equity mortgages knew little if anything about this option that had been available for over seven years at the time of the research. Nothing was known on how many of the 12,000 were elderly caregivers.
The research objectives were:
1. To explore with eight older families the available information on reverse equity mortgages and the benefits or barriers to access the equity of their homes.
2. To collect their individual evaluations of these equity options and the willingness to participate in the second stage of going through the counseling sessions to be certified as an eligible reverse equity mortgage applicant.
3. To develop and disseminate an information booklet on REMs and how the funding source could be accessed to cover the costs of supports and services in the future for elderly family carers who are homeowners.
Families were recruited from the ARC of Kentucky and the Kentucky Developmental Disabilities Council recommendations. Letters of introduction and timetable of activities and interactions were developed to get the participants involved and working with the Principal Investigator. Information on reverse equity mortgages was collected from the Internet, from on-site interviews with local financial institutions that offered this program, AARP, the National Center for Home Equity Conversion, and the Senior Income Reverse Mortgage Corporation. These promotional materials were shared with the participating families and then adapted from on-going suggestions and recommendations. Methodology steps included:
· Identify and recruit eight older families who were homeowners and carers of aging family members with mental retardation to participate in the project.
· Combine available information on reverse equity mortgage options into a format understandable by older homeowners to make comparisons and decisions on how feasible this avenue of funding may be as a way to assure supports and services would be available when their ability to continue caring was ended.
· Meet individually and in a focus group to review the different options and types of reverse equity mortgages available to an older family.
· Take interested family homeowners through the full process of counseling and certification up to the actual application for funding to evaluate the actual acquiring of a reverse equity mortgage.
· Conduct face to face final interviews with those project participants who went through the full process to collect their impressions of positive and negative components of using their family home as a source of funding for futures planning.
· Develop an informational booklet on REMS using the available information, evaluations and reactions of the participants to these options.
Training and dissemination activities included mailing copies of an informational booklet on Reverse Equity Mortgages developed specific to the needs of older families and homeowners caring for relatives with developmental disabilities to the mr/dd state agencies, DD Councils, and interested individuals and agencies around the country. Five hundred booklets were printed in 1996 and half were sent to the RRTC for the Clearinghouse to disseminate on request. Training on the REM for older families has been conducted in 1996 and 1997 at conferences and seminars in Oklahoma, Texas, Kentucky, and Georgia. An adaptation of the booklet was created in 1998 for the Texas Ombudsman Program when the voting citizens approved home equity loans.
A sixteen page booklet was developed that provided aging families with the information to make decisions and choices for the futures of their families and how to use the cash equity of their family homes as they determined the needs and not have to move or repay the funds in their lifetime.
The product of this project has provided new information to assist families who may wish to make plans for transferring the responsibilities of caregiving and to assure specific supports may be in place at their death or inability to continue the day to day caregiver chores. In a brief, but understandable format, families are provided explanations, comparisons, and recommendations that may be considered examples of how a REM could help their future plans and offer a solution to being "house rich and cash poor." A REM could provide the funding for special needs trusts, assistance for their sons or daughters to buy their own homes, or for those dreams that have been on hold due to a lack of money over many years.
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