Norco’s Elderly : Seniors Love the Rural Life but Find Services Scarce

This is a city without sidewalks, without apartments and without much public transportation, a city of ranches and horse trails, a city that respects Western ideals like hard work and self-reliance.

To most Norco residents, these attributes are essential to their treasured rural life style. For the elderly, though, the same elements that give this city its countrified flavor can also have a bitter taste.

“After the horse, we come second,” said Frenchy Rougeau, who has lived for five of his 79 years at his daughter’s home in Norco.

Norco, a city of 22,000 in the burgeoning northwest corner of Riverside County, is no ordinary bedroom community. Located 40 miles west-southwest of Los Angeles, Norco boasts twice as many horses as people. And those people can be vehement when defending their community’s restrictive zoning and rural character.

Agricultural Atmosphere

“This is a hard place to live in,” admitted Marvin Axelton, who represents the city’s elderly residents in the California Senior Legislature and the Riverside County Area Agency on Aging advisory council.

“People seem to think (senior citizens) will take care of themselves,” Axelton said.

Some of them do just that--and they thrive on the agricultural atmosphere that brought many of them to Norco in the first place. “Norco is unique, mainly because the seniors are a self-sufficient group,” said Susan Donald, the city’s full-time senior citizens coordinator. “They have their half acres . . . they’re farming, keeping horses.”

After he suffered a heart attack a few years ago, Axelton’s doctor ordered him to get busy. The longtime Norco resident got involved in a local senior citizens’ nutrition program, which led to ever-expanding involvement in politics and issues affecting the elderly.

He also keeps his own ranch. “I’m 78, almost 79,” Axelton said. “I raise my calves, pigs, chickens. I have no problems.

“I think every senior should get out and do something,” he said. “You can’t sit on your duff and expect to live very long.”

But some, of course, cannot continue to care for their animals or maintain their homes and gardens. Their strength wanes, their spouses die; some seniors are no longer able to handle the rigors of rural life.

Still Love Norco

“They still love Norco and want to stay here, but they don’t have the time or the ability to take care of the properties or the animals,” said Ronald Cano, city manager.

Getting to the store, the doctor’s office or the senior center can be a real challenge for those who cannot drive. Things are spread out in Norco, and there are virtually no sidewalks. The dial-a-ride service is inconvenient and slow, most elderly riders complained.

And Norco’s large lots multiply the work that is required of a homeowner.

“We had everything,” said Emma Zupancic, 70. “I had cows, pheasants, rabbits, goats. I had a pet sheep--and horses.”

But the animals got to be too much work after her husband died, she said. “It’s hard to handle things. I can’t lift a hundred-pound bag (of feed).”

Now, she keeps only peacocks, chickens and her dogs, Zupancic said. “Every morning I go out and feed the peacocks and chickens. No matter how sick I feel, I have to do it. . . .

“When you have an animal,” she said, “you have to feed him every day, Sunday, Easter, in sickness or in health. That animal’s got to be fed.”

Hired Hand

Zupancic now has to rely on a hired hand to take care of her half-acre ranch.

Still, she said, “I like it here very much. Since it’s a small town, we’re more friendly and more together. . . .

“If you don’t like animals, you shouldn’t be living in Norco,” Zupancic said. “If you don’t like it here, you can move into town, like Los Angeles.”

Until recently, city officials concede, Norco offered few alternatives for older residents who would rather stay.

The City Council passed an ordinance last year allowing homeowners to put mobile homes in their backyards to house elderly relatives, despite Norco’s strict zoning laws, which prohibit mobile homes and allow only one residence on any lot.

Although many residents argued strongly for the “granny home” ordinance, few have since taken advantage of it, said G. W. (Bill) Young, Norco’s director of community development.

Few Took Advantage

“I think there have been maybe one or two since they adopted the ordinance,” Young said.

The reason few homeowners have opted for granny homes, he speculated, is the expense involved in buying and installing them. Under the 1985 ordinance, the mobile homes must be removed--not rented to someone else--when the elderly resident leaves.

The City Council also decided last year to allow another, more visible exception to its policy prohibiting multiple-unit dwellings: an 86-unit senior citizens’ apartment complex, called Heritage Park.

Through the federal Community Development Block Grant program--from which Norco had been left out because it had no program to provide low-income housing--the city is contributing about $300,000 toward the project, Cano said.

“It’s the only apartment project in the City of Norco,” said Jean Mills, project manager. “. . . They definitely have a need for senior housing.”

The complex, developed and managed by Calmark Properties Inc. of Los Angeles, will not be “a convalescent home,” Cano said. “It is to be for people who can take care of themselves, but don’t want to be isolated and living by themselves.”

Heritage Park’s opening “will probably be April of next year,” Mills said, “depending on the weather.”

Application forms will be distributed to senior citizens interested in living in Heritage Park about two months before it opens, Mills said. Rents in the complex will probably range from $375 to $500 monthly, plus utilities, Mills said.

Worried About Rents

Some seniors are concerned that they won’t be able to afford even those rents, said Judy Luce, the city’s outreach specialist. “Most live on Social Security.”

The apartments will be located just off Hamner Avenue, Norco’s main commercial street. That will allow residents to walk to shopping centers, the public library and the post office.

“That’s really going to be something for people who can’t get around,” Zupancic said.

For now, though, Norco’s senior citizens are still counting on each other.

“They have a feeling for each other,” Axelton said. “They’ll go out of their way to pick up someone, or do something for someone.”

One finds Glen Kinum, for example, under the hood of someone’s car in front of the senior citizens’ center. “I fix lawn mowers and tractors,” the 77-year-old handyman said. “Anytime somebody needs it and I get some time, I try to help out.”

He also brings vegetables from his garden to the center, for other seniors who need the food. “If you plant what you need for yourself,” he said, “you never get anything. So you have to plant a little extra. . . .” Other volunteers visit homebound seniors in and around Norco, delivering hot lunches and a little company to those who cannot make it to the city’s busy little senior center.

“Based on use of the community center and senior citizens center, Norco is a good place” for the elderly to live, Cano said. “But based on having the local amenities and transportation system, there’s probably room for some improvement.”