Food and daily living
Meals, housekeeping, laundry, company. The unglamorous half of staying at home, and the half that usually slips first.
Official source the real list is public and we send you to it
Start with the programme that already exists
Before you buy anything: there is a national, federally funded meal programme for people aged 60 and over, run locally by Area Agencies on Aging under the Older Americans Act. It delivers meals to the home for people who cannot easily get out or cook for themselves. Most families have never heard of it, and the companies that advertise senior meal delivery have no reason to mention it.
It asks for a voluntary contribution rather than charging a price. The federal FAQ puts the question directly — are elders denied services if they cannot or will not contribute to the cost of a meal? — and answers it in one word: No.
Find your Area Agency on Aging or call 1-800-677-1116. They also answer transport, in-home help, caregiver support and home-modification questions, they are free, and they are not selling anything.
Commercial meal delivery, when the programme is not the answer
Waiting lists exist, and some families want more choice or a different diet than the programme offers. Paid senior meal services are ordinary businesses: no register, no ratings anybody can vouch for. What to look at:
- Are the meals ready to eat or do they need real cooking? For someone with memory loss this is the whole question.
- Can it handle the actual diet — renal, diabetic, low sodium, soft or pureed textures?
- How is it delivered, and does someone have to be in? A meal left on a porch in July is not a meal.
- Is it a subscription, and how hard is it to pause or stop?
- Does anyone lay eyes on your parent at the door? The daily check-in is often worth more than the food.
Housekeeping, laundry and the help that is not medical
This is the least glamorous section on this site and it is the one that keeps people in their houses. It is also completely unregulated: no licence, no register, no rating — which is why we will not hand you a ranked list. What we can tell you is what separates a safe arrangement from an expensive problem.
- Who is the employer? A cleaning company employs and insures its staff. A person you found locally does not employ themselves — you do, with the payroll and liability that implies.
- Is the company insured and bonded? Bonding is what covers theft, and it is a different thing from liability insurance.
- Who has a key, and what happens when that person leaves the company?
- Will it be the same person each time? For someone with dementia a rotating cast is worse than the same person every second week.
- What happens if they do not turn up, and who tells you?
- Do they do the specific things that actually matter here — changing bedding, the bathroom, the fridge — or only the visible surfaces?
Help with bathing and dressing is a different category again: that is personal care, it belongs with care that comes to them, and a housekeeping company should not be doing it.
Company, groceries and the dog
Companionship visits — paid visitors, and also volunteer friendly-visitor and phone-check programmes run through Area Agencies on Aging and local charities. Ask about the free ones first.
Grocery delivery — ordinary supermarket delivery solves this for many families at no premium, provided somebody sets the account up and keeps the payment card current. That "somebody" job is worth writing down.
The pet — sounds trivial, decides outcomes. An animal your parent cannot walk or afford is a common hidden reason a household stops working, and dog-walking is cheaper than almost anything else on this page.