Digital Neighborhood Aims To Provide Opportunities To Age Together On The East End

When Nancy Peppard moved to East Hampton in 2000, she never thought she would still be living there 18 years later. Originally from West Sayville, she relocated from Hong Kong to take care of her parents, Charles and Dorothy Peppard. Her 80-year-old mother had just had a heart attack.

“I was with them 24/7 for the rest of their lives,” Ms. Peppard said. From that point on, her father would take the senior bus every day to the East Hampton Senior Center to have lunch, play bingo and see his friends. But her mother wasn’t interested. Instead, she sat home and watched television shows like “Let’s Make a Deal” and “The Price Is Right,” then eat lunch and take a nap. And as they got well into their 80s, Ms. Peppard, who holds a doctorate in gerontology, started to see the warning signs of failing health.

“If you look at a lot of older adults who are over the age of 70—but that’s almost passé because I am almost 70 and I am starting a new business—they’re not stimulated,” Ms. Peppard said. “There is not enough to do, and they are unaware of what is offered in the community.”

As a result, Ms. Peppard is starting up a nonprofit that would help form a community of maturing residents who can age together and support each other. The Out East Neighborhood Network would act as an umbrella organization to serve the social, health and activity needs of people age 50 and older in the five East End towns. For now, the community of predominantly Baby Boomers meet online at outeastneighborhoodnetwork.org.

As a forensic gerontologist, Ms. Peppard “is aging into her profession.” Since she was 24, she has studied old age, the process of aging and the problems of older people. In the 1970s, Ms. Peppard designed and developed the first segregated long-term care unit for people with dementia—an idea now implemented in nursing homes and assisted living communities throughout the country. Her expertise in the lifestyle, healthcare, housing and workforce of older people was tapped for two White House Conferences on Aging. She has guided corporations, government agencies and nonprofit organizations around the world in employing an intergenerational workforce.

Approaching 70, Ms. Peppard is now uneasy on her feet when she’s on them for lengths at a time. She has trouble with her knee after an injury she sustained from a recent fall. Her red, thick-framed glasses hug her nose. Ms. Peppard said the services she has planned for Out East Neighborhood Network are many that she wishes her parents had and that she hopes to have as she ages on the East End.

In 2012, Ms. Peppard was on the planning committee to replace a senior center in East Hampton, which she said speaks to the larger issue of the lack of services and deteriorating elder care infrastructure on eastern Long Island.

“East Hampton Senior Center is literally—literally, literally—falling down around the people who go there,” Ms. Peppard said. A plan was offered to the Town Board and an $8 million bond was approved to build a new senior center. The original design that was approved by the board was eventually scrapped because of residents’ concerns with the building’s 18,700-square-foot size. As of June, a new plan is still being tweaked by a local architectural firm.

Meanwhile, the demand for services, such as meals for seniors, has increased 40 percent since 2011, according to the Town Board.

“On the South Fork, especially in East Hampton, anyone over the age of 50 is an orphan,” she said. “Any kind of need that you have—whether it is for you or your elderly parent who needs social activity, medical care, food, housing, anything like that—it is a very low priority for the town.”

While East End towns, including East Hampton, do have home maintenance and transportation services, and even nutrition programs, Ms. Peppard said the infrastructure of those programs is grossly underfunded.

“Compared to former administrations, it’s a skeleton of itself,” she said.

Around the same time that East Hampton was trying to figure out the senior center situation, some residents in the suburbs of Boston were experiencing similar problems: The needs of an aging population exceeded what the services in the area could provide. After about a year, the Beacon Hill Village was formed. It was a community group that offered care options for its aging neighborhood.

“It’s a group of moms and dads who got together when they were 70 and 80 trying to figure out how do you do this instead of being alone,” Ms. Peppard said. That group has now become a movement across the United States of more than 300 villages, in part with help from consulting firm Village to Village Network, which offers expertise to aging in community startups looking to get off the ground.

The Out East Neighborhood Network is loosely modeled on the Beacon Hill Village, and plans to eventually be associated with the Village to Village Network.

“There are all kinds of reasons why people who are heading toward retirement years are heading out here in hopes of a better quality of life. They are close to the city. They are close to international transportation. Maybe they grew up here like me, or they may be moving closer to friends or family,” Ms. Peppard said. “But the caveat is you have to be well-heeled to live here.”

Ms. Peppard tapped the expertise of Michael Daly about six months ago after he gave a presentation at John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor on real estate options for seniors—or the lack thereof. In addition to working as a real estate agent for Douglas Elliman, Mr. Daly is an advocate for the “yes in my backyard,” or YIMBY, movement, which is a counterblow to the “not in my backyard,” or NIMBY, sentiment. Mr. Daly has been calling for more affordable housing options on the South Fork, especially for those on a fixed income.

“There is such a lack of awareness, knowledge, recognition of these services, because we want the Hamptons to be young and exclusive,” Mr. Daly said. “The local leadership has had to kowtow to the wealthy, the youth and where the money is to get just about anything done. And because of that, we are so behind the eight ball. It’s hard not to see, and soon we will all experience age and those troubles, too.”

Ms. Peppard said an increasing number of mature residents are feeling isolated in their homes. As people grow older, and friends move to warmer temperatures or die, they are left alone.

“And I have noticed that programs for seniors start later in the day. If it’s dark out, I know I am not driving. If it’s on Main Street, it’s too busy for us to drive there, and many of us can’t walk to where we are going,” she said. “Nobody factors in older adults and the kinds of sensory problems that they are encountering.”

The network will focus on hosting and promoting social events for people over 50 to form friendships, including going to the movies, theater and art shows.

Octogenarians and nonagenarians are largely bound to their homes, and most of them have given up on driving, Ms. Peppard said, noting that the network would attract volunteers who would offer transportation, such as to medical appointments. The Out East Neighborhood Network would also assume the responsibility of vetting new franchises that aim to assist older residents with transportation, health care, at-home care and renovations to a make a house ready for homeowners to age in place.

“By keeping your brain going and socially active and involved, we can avoid the worst thing about aging: loneliness, which turns to depression,” Ms. Peppard said.