Retiring in North Carolina as an LGBTQIA+ Older Adult

Village Hearth is a cohousing community in Durham, North Carolina, and describes itself as the first 55+ cohousing community in the United States created by and for LGBTQIA+ people, friends and allies. Cohousing means residents own their own homes and share the running of the community and its common space, which is a genuinely different proposition from a managed senior-living community. The site covers 15 acres and holds 28 single-story homes built to universal design, clustered around a common house. Shared facilities include a gourmet kitchen and dining room, an exercise room, a guest suite, gardens and a workshop. There is no care on site. Village Hearth is housing and community, not assisted living, so residents who later need personal care arrange it privately in their own home. Homes come up for resale rather than being rented, and the community keeps a Resale Interest List. It also runs a monthly online session, Hour With Village Hearth, on the first Tuesday of the month, plus virtual meet-and-greets for people considering a move.

Inclusive features: Pets welcome

Grace Ridge is a life-plan community, also called a continuing-care retirement community, on a 52-acre campus in Morganton, North Carolina, near the Catawba River greenway and the town center. All four levels of care are on one campus: independent living, assisted living, memory care and skilled nursing. That is the core of the life-plan proposition, and it is worth asking exactly how a move between levels is triggered and priced. Community life leans on arts and the outdoors, with painting, chorus, theater, volunteering, greenway access, dining and wellness programming, plus the Table Rock Lounge. Entrance fees and monthly charges are not published. Life-plan contracts vary widely in what they guarantee, so ask what is refundable, what happens if your money runs out, and what care costs once you need it.