Senior Moving Assistance: What Are Facilitation Services and Who Needs Them?
The saying “once begun, half done,” fits many moving situations. Getting started is often the biggest challenge in any project. Fortunately, facilitators are available to help you decide which belongings to keep, what to sell or pass on to loved ones, and what to discard or donate. They can also help you through the rest of the moving process, from packing up your home to planning your new space and helping you settle in.
A move of any magnitude often begins with a house full of memories, from trophies in the attic to a basement full of tchotchkes, photo albums, and home movies. Among other things, a home may be filled with family heirlooms, fine china, and drawers or boxes of tools and equipment.
Knowing how to get started can be tough. In fact, the entire process of moving can be overwhelming. Facilitators are professional organizers and can help your family every step of the way. Let’s look at four of the most popular services these professionals offer.
1. Sorting Your Belongings
Organizer services often begin with sorting through a houseful of belongings. With an unbiased, third-party organizing expert at your side, there is less emotion in the decision-making. An organizer can also keep you focused and on task so it’s easier to make progress.
Our facilitators work closely with seniors and their family members to sort belongings into four key categories:
- Things to keep (that can fit into the new space)
- Things to send / give to family members
- Things to donate
- Things to discard
By organizing everything before the movers arrive, facilitators help ensure that the day of the move can go as smoothly as possible.
2. Space Planning
Another area of assistance facilitators offer is space planning. First they’ll take inventory of all the belongings and assess how they’re set up in the current home. Then they’ll determine which items will fit (and where) in the new home.
The organizer will acquire a floor plan of the new living space and will even create diagrams to show the movers where to place the furniture so the space is livable right away.
3. Move Management
When you choose move management services, our facilitators oversee everything on the actual moving day. It’s an invaluable service that makes one of the toughest days of the moving process less overwhelming.
| MOVING MOMENTS: A couple in California is currently relocating to Michigan. This lovely couple had an extremely complex move that required many people and various skill sets to coordinate—facilitators, packers, movers, realtors, seniors, influencers (adult children), and more. Moves for Seniors had a senior-focused professional organizer work with them to do a large amount of downsizing and organizing. She also worked with the packers and movers to oversee that all items were correctly labeled and loaded, ensuring a smooth moving day from start to finish. |
4. Settling In
A facilitator can provide unpacking services and help you settle into your new home. They will arrive on the day of or the day after move-in and set up the home for immediate comfort and familiarity. This includes removing items from boxes and placing them in cupboards and drawers, making beds, hanging shower curtains, and discarding the boxes and packing supplies.
Settle-in services include the finishing touches that make a house a home. A place for everything and everything in its place!
| MOVING MOMENTS: A Moves for Seniors client recently moved from one community to another. She had 85 pictures that needed to be removed and rehung at her new location…in the exact same positions. Our facilitator worked with the movers in charge of packing them up to capture photos of the exact original placement. She met the senior at the new home and perfectly recreated the layout on the chosen wall. |
Who Needs Senior Move Assistance?
There are many reasons families choose to work with our facilitators. Some of the most popular reasons to use a move facilitation service are:
- Emotional or health issues that make it hard for the person to take action
- No help from family or friends
- Lots of stuff to downsize or move
- Big difference in size between the new home and old
- Hoarding behaviors
Facilitators have the experience and expertise to navigate these issues sensitively and efficiently.
Move facilitation services are not only valuable to seniors and their families, but also to the communities. Having assistance in the downsizing and organization process makes for an easier (and quicker) decision to sign the lease, and makes it easier to get involved with the community once the lease has been signed.
| MOVING MOMENTS: A community partner called Moves for Seniors when one of their residents passed away. His partner was too emotional to clean out his unit. We were able to help her go into the apartment and go through the items in a supportive yet productive way. We transported special things to his daughter in another state and donated the remaining items. The partner was very grateful to have someone with her to empathize and lead the process. The community was happy because they were able to get the unit back on the market. |
Wrapping Up
The move from a long-time home to senior housing or a smaller house can be complex and exhausting. Facilitators can help streamline the process from start to finish by helping with everything from decluttering and packing to space planning, unpacking, and settling in.
Ready to make the move? Get your quote today.