<\/p>\n
Grace Barber, 65, a retired nurse and teacher, poses for a photo in front of the house where she lives with her daughter, Wednesday, July 22, 2026, in Dallas.<\/p>\n
Chitose Suzuki\/The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n
While watching TV one night, Grace Barber, 65, decided to make a career change.<\/p>\n
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A commercial showcasing a nurse tending to a car crash victim, performing CPR and responding to a series of other emergencies resonated with her as an already practicing medical professional. At the end, the commercial revealed the nurse was not the one actually on-scene, but rather the students she taught.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Barber continued working full time while earning her alternative certification in teaching health, science and technology, and began instructing at Dallas\u2019 School of Health Professions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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As the years passed, Barber began planning for retirement at the encouragement of her friends and a financial advisor. Most of her savings came from the social security benefits of a 12-year nursing career.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Barber\u2019s daughter, Laura Hayes, grew concerned about her mom\u2019s ability to save enough when Barber, whom she said spent her life in service of others, received a $200 monthly increase in rent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Haynes sat down with her mom and compared recommended retirement numbers to reality. The result? \u201cPretty sobering.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barber would eventually move in with Haynes, her husband and their two children, in 2017.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The financial factor\u00a0<\/p>\n
David John, a senior strategic policy advisor at AARP Public Policy Institute, said inflation and the rising cost of living are among the most pressing concerns for older adults across the nation. Social security benefits have not risen at a high enough rate to match inflation, John said, making retirement more difficult to save for.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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In North Texas, organizations such as The Senior Source work to help older adults address these concerns as they navigate aging.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Julie Krawczyk is the director of the non-profit\u2019s Elder Financial Safety Center, where financial counseling services reach lower and middle income adults who receive social security benefits.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur older adults are walking through the door already at a deficit,\u201d Krawczyk said, noting the average affordable senior apartment in Dallas is $1,418 a month while the average social security benefit ranges from $1,200 or $2,000. Add transportation, healthcare, food and essential needs, and the challenge mounts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Both John and Krawczyk said they often hear older adults say saving for retirement is important to them, but in practice, these savings cannot meet the cost of living demands.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Grace Barber, 65, a retired nurse and teacher, right, poses for a photo with her daughter Laura Haynes, left, and granddaughter Irene Haynes, 10, in front of their house, Wednesday, July 22, 2026, in Dallas.<\/p>\n
Chitose Suzuki\/The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n
A rise in multigenerational housing<\/p>\n
After years of seeing adult children move in with their parents, Krawczyk has noticed an increase in older adults moving to and from Texas in order to live in a multigenerational home. She believes this trend will continue and credits it to a lack of affordable housing.<\/p>\n
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Doni Green, director of aging programs for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, is part of the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs. She said the department has been discussing a limited availability of affordable homes for older adults in Dallas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She pointed to a National Low Income Housing Coalition report <\/a>which found Dallas-Fort Worth only offered 18 affordable and available rental homes for every 100 low income renter households, lower than the state\u2019s average.\u00a0<\/p>\n Juliana Horowitz, senior associate director of social trends research at the PEW Research Center, studies how the American family and the workplace are changing.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2022, her team undertook a project to understand the increase in multigenerational homes<\/a> in the U.S. Researchers concluded finances were one of the top reasons Americans chose to live in multigenerational homes.\u00a0<\/p>\n The prevalence of multigenerational homes also varies depending on demographic background, Horowitz said. White adults are the least likely to live in a multigenerational home in the U.S., whereas nearly a quarter of Hispanic and Asian adults do.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Haynes echoed this sentiment, saying her first-generation immigrant friends responded with immense joy after hearing about Barber moving in.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey jumped up off the chair and gave me a big hug and said, \u2018I\u2019m so happy for you, you\u2019re living the dream. I can\u2019t wait until the day we\u2019re financially stable enough that I can reach out to my parents and offer to have them live with us.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet, a number of Haynes\u2019 American-born friends immediately asked if everything was okay.\u00a0<\/p>\n