Regular recovery --- a gap in the system

Picking up the phone the other day the caller described a situation to me that was troubling, and got me thinking. The story was about someone who had lost a job over the last year and a half, a job that had supported her for almost 30 years, the recession had eliminated opportunity. Educated and talented but singularly independent, without any family support, she eventually found herself without funds or adequate(or any) housing, and going through a sudden run of bad health. I listened to suggested solutions from the concerned caller, all sound ones with great intentions, but my response was "those are all good but right now she needs to be somewhere immediately where she can rest, revitalize, exercise, and get three good meals a day --- institutionalized".

Hanging up the phone I realized the problem. The person in trouble did not have a substance abuse problem, was not elderly, not mentally ill, not in acute bad health, and not in any way financially capable of a spa experience. She is just a person who has run into an exhausting and stressful string of tough life events. She just needs an inexpensive or at least very reasonably priced place to catch up on what a healthy and safe life is and be removed from stress for a month or so while a few friends and acquaintances try to put something stable in place.

Instead of $22,000 or much more for a month of 12 stepping or electroshock or group therapy or relearning to walk she needs a place for, just a guess, $2000 or $2500 a month at most that has spartan but private accomodations, three decent meals a day, a place to exercise and watch television or read or talk with others and a place to walk and be outside. This seems like a missed business opportunity for places that could be located in inexpensive rural areas and could be staffed without on site medical professionals other than a nursing station, without loads of self-righteous counselors, sans yoga instructors.

So we're not talking Canyon Ranch here, that Ritz Carlton of a spa experience for $8000 a week, we're talking Econolodge in the Woods. It's a new market niche, meeting a market need, creating some construction work and modest but responsible jobs. There could be, let's think:

The Mid Life Recharge Center
Recession Revival House
The Take-A-Break Recovery Retreat
Good Eats, Good Rest, Get Better Land

This is not a joke, there is a need for something like this, doncha think.