page_37 < previous page page_37 next page > Page 37 While it's booming now, retirement home operators are cautious that their growth industry might go bust when the next generation starts looking for housing. "This generation can handle it, but what about the next generation?" said Beth Mack, marketing director at Homestead Village.... "The demand is there now, but that's why we're building cautiously, in phases." "... We're going from a generation of people who are savers to a generation of people who don't have the money but think they can spend it," said a spokesman from Willow Valley. 12 To enter a "continuing care retirement community" (CCRC) residents "pay an entrance fee ranging from $40,000 to $190,000 or more for housing and a monthly fee for services such as meals, utilities and home maintenance."13 Apartments at Garden Spot Village cost from $47,200 to $67,250; cottages, from $88,000 to $126,000. The monthly fee runs from $525 to $625 per person, depending on apartment size.14 The Sunday New York Times recently cited an estimate by Merrill Lynch brokerage firm that "a husband and wife earning $85,000 apiece when they retire together at age 65 will need at least $1.5 million in savings to come away with $100,000 a year in retirement income."15 But, it added darkly, "that estimate assumes that inflation will be mild and that $26,000 of the $100,000 will still come from Social Security. Maybe. The Social Security fund is expected to run dry by 2029."16 In Lancaster County today, retirement care is a booming business, ranked fourth behind manufacturing, tourism, and farming. Ten years ago there was a mere "handful" of CCRCs. Soon there will be fifteen17including Garden Spot Villagesome built and financed by Lancaster Conference Mennonites. There are other things on Susan Jackson's mind; one of them concerns the right to speak out against development. "At a township meeting one of them said to me, 'Do you like your house out there on Runway Avenue?' And I said, 'Yes, I do,' and they said, 'Well, you've taken up farmland!' And I said, 'Don't tell me I've taken up farmland. I've lived here all my life. I know what this used to be. I used to come out here when I was a little girl. This stretch was not farmland; it was a little airport. And on either side of this was nothing. But it was not farmland. So they think that the people who live out here are not from here and shouldn't have any say in what happens! But I wanted them to know I've been here, I know what's here. "My husband is originally from South Jersey," she says, getting up to pour herself a cup of coffee, "and he has been condemned to my parents' face by someone closely attached to the supervisors because he has 'no right to say what should go on here because he's not from around here!' But of course he has a right! When you come from an urban/suburban area like South Jersey, you learn to appreciate what's here. And I think that more  < previous page page_37 next page >