A Model For Community-Based Black Elder Care?

The Covid-19 pandemic is far from over, but here and there emerge glimmers of hope that the future of our shoddy and mostly hidden elder care system can meet the challenge of 70+ million boomers facing generational antiquity. A small, Black, under-resourced, nursing home in a so-called ‘bad’ neighborhood so far has taken care of its 29 residents without recording a single Covid infection. Contrast that to the reports of mass death coming out of big nursing home chains backed by investment motives. Yet, one example does not a model make. The question is whether the results of this neighborhood anchored, responsibly managed enterprise whose actions were guided by a savvy awareness of institutional racism, are reproducible. Are they scalable? Can this community grounded, culturally appropriate facility proliferate like the infectious agent it has so far resisted? These are critical questions for those of us boomers who face the currently daunting prospect of aging while Black.