By Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist, Blogging at The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide

Guest Blogger

Although we had a couple of sunny weeks in October, the winter rains are now descending on the Pacific Northwest. Today it’s raining, sometimes pouring, and 52 degrees.

All fall, I’ve been dreaming about living in California. One place I’ve thought about retiring to is San Luis Obispo. With a population of 44,174, it’s halfway between Sacramento, where my oldest daughter lives, and Los Angeles, where my youngest daughter may move.

When my California daughter went to visit San Luis Obispo recently, she bought me a copy of a new biannual magazine called San Luis Obispo County: An Insider’s Guide to California’s Natural Escape. The Insiders Guide reports:

• Cultural activities include plays, a symphony, festivals, art shows and galleries, and music.
• Educational and cultural opportunities at California Polytechnical State University.
• A farmers’ market with 120 vendors and an estimated 10,000 weekly shoppers.
• An elephant seal rookery north of San Simeon.
• The William Randolph Hearst Castle, rising from a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean near San Simeon.
• Dozens of vineyards, many with wine bars and specialty tastings.

In North San Luis Obispo County, Paso Robles also is appealing to me. I’d like to live in co-housing, and the city, with a population of 28,639, has a co-housing complex. However, my daughter told me Paso Robles is further inland than the city of San Luis Obispo, and it can get very hot in the summer. That’s a drawback for me.

What’s boomer living like in this part of California?

My daughter also sent me an Oct. 19, 2008, newspaper article from The Tribune, San Luis Obispo’s newspaper, called “Four More Boomer Stories.” It describes these couples:

• Susan and Ed Cox moved to Morro Bay on the coast from Southern California for a mellower lifestyle. Both educators, they worked when they moved, but Susan, 61, has retired for a second time. Ed, 63, is an executive coach, and he plans to continue to work for at least five years.
• Boomer Carolyn Elliott, 45, has an aggressive approach in saving for retirement. Elliot works in a salon and owns a permanent makeup business. Elliott could retire at 55 or 60, but it’s likely she’ll work longer.
• Gayle Hulburt and William Kennedy moved from Colorado to Trilogy, a community that’s drawing boomers with amenities such as a golf course and swimming pool. They sold their basement finishing company when they moved, but Hurlburt, 56, works as a Web site developer.
• Dennis Delzeit, 62, worked for 13 years as director of public works/city engineer for Pismo Beach, a city on the coast in South San Luis Obispo County. Delzeit plans to work as a part-time consultant in retirement. His wife, Sherrie, is a retired social worker.

But, is living in California all sunshine and happiness?

I read a sobering article in AARP Bulletin, the Oct. 1, 2008, issue, called “Why Are More Older Americans Sleeping in Their Cars?”

In Santa Barbara, Calif., an ultra-affluent oceanfront city surrounded by mountains south of San Luis Obispo County and 95 miles north of Los Angeles, a grandmother sleeps in her Jeep Grand Cherokee. The woman, whose name wasn’t used in the article, recently owned two homes worth nearly $2 million. She was unable to sell her homes or pay the $10,000-a-month mortgage payments, so she declared bankruptcy in 2005. A year later, she lost both properties.

To help people who work and can afford cars, gas, and insurance, Santa Barbara provides recently homeless people the opportunity to sleep in their cars every evening in a dozen private and municipal parking lots throughout the city, according to the AARP Bulletin article. Two social workers check the lots each night as part of a safe parking project.

Most of these homeless people are over 50 and have been driven out of their homes and onto the street by the nation’s economic turmoil and the record foreclosure rate.

In Los Angeles, hundreds of people are living in their cars because shelters can accommodate only about a third of the city’s estimated 73,000 homeless population, the article reports.

While living in sunny California would be great and I’ll keep researching it, it’s important for anyone wanting to live there to realize the cost of living is expensive.

That’s an important factor to consider it you’re thinking about retiring where it’s warm.

For tips on how to research retiring to warmer climates, see my articles “The Dream of Retiring Where It’s Warm in the U.S.” and “The Dream of Retiring Where It’s Warm Abroad.”

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