In Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 masterpiece, The Sun Also Rises, a financially ruined character named Mike Campbell was asked, “How did you go bankrupt?”
“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”
Not just a comment on financial ruin, it shows how major crises sneak up after years of benign neglect and happy talk before collapsing into a full-blown emergency.
Against that backdrop, the recently released 2026 Cook County Senior Living Market Demand Assessment confirms what local families and care advocates have known for years. Cook County is facing a critical, immediate deficit in senior housing. More than a third of county residents are over the age of 65. The report projects that Cook County needs to find 80 to 115 dedicated senior housing options to keep aging residents in the county. The worst takeaway from the assessment, perhaps, isn’t just the shortage of independent senior living options; it is the total absence of assisted living, memory care, and hospice options. The sad reality is that needing light-to-moderate daily care translates to an involuntary eviction from the county.
This assessment, undertaken by joint resolution of the county HRA and EDA, was prepared by Wipfli’s Duluth office, a top-20 national firm specializing in accounting, tax, and consulting services. It updates the 2015 assessment, originally commissioned to project the county’s needs through 2025.
“We realize that this is not the first time we’ve been talking about this issue,” said Jeff Brand, Executive Director of the Cook County Housing and Redevelopment Authority (HRA).
The 2015 Cook County Senior Housing Assessment, commissioned by the EDA, was part of an effort to quantify the housing gaps facing an aging population and project the county’s needs through 2025.
Building on that earlier assessment, the study highlighted several challenges that continue to shape local housing policy on the North Shore. It found that Cook County had the fastest-growing senior population (65+) in Minnesota, projecting a massive wave of future demand for age-appropriate housing. Input from residents showed that a vast majority of local seniors desired to remain in the county. The study showed a severe lack of senior housing models such as independent senior apartments, pocket neighborhoods, and maintenance-free cooperatives, some of which have been addressed over the last couple of years. That lack was projected to keep older residents in large, isolated single-family homes that required heavy upkeep or force them to leave the county.
“For a very long time folks have lived in the county until they no longer could,” Brand said. “We are losing great people who have invested a lifetime here, and it weighs heavy on my mind as we try to solve this riddle,” he added.
According to US Census data, Cook County’s senior population has undergone a massive structural shift in both income and population share over the last decade. In 2015, less than a quarter of Cook County residents were aged 65 or older, almost twice the state percentage of 13.9%. Today, fully a third of the population is over 65, making Cook the fastest-aging county in Minnesota. Together, those numbers show how quickly the county’s senior profile has changed.
That shift appears clearly in household income as well. In 2015, the median household income in Cook County was just under $52 thousand. Median income for senior households was in the mid-tohigh $30 thousands. Today, the median household income for seniors has reached $72,635. That trend isn’t just because existing seniors received raises on fixed incomes. It reflects a broader migration pattern in which wealthier retirement-age individuals purchase property and relocate to the North Shore, while younger local families move away. Even though today’s seniors are statistically “wealthier” on paper than those in 2015, their nearly doubled incomes are colliding with local home values that shot up over 57% during that time.
Nearly 1 in 3 people living in Cook County falls into this senior demographic group, putting into stark relief why the HRA and local leaders are pushing for localized assisted living and memory care infrastructure. With the demand assessment finalized, the HRA is pivoting to Phase 2, launching community town hall meetings across the county to gather direct feedback from residents and caregivers on their preferred priorities for the community. Concurrently, local officials are using the hard data from this assessment to vet outside developers, pitch public-private partnerships, and establish a Local Housing Trust Fund to help subsidize construction.
Brand assured us that the HRA board will not give up on finding solutions to this problem. The Housing Trust Fund is a start, and all options are being considered. The overarching goal is to create a sustainable, localized roadmap so North Shore seniors can age in place with dignity, rather than being exported down Highway 61.
