When Arlene Linder sought to move back to the North Bay in 2025 after 15 years out of state, she was not prepared for how expensive it would be to return to California as a senior.
For the first time in her life, the former homeowner was in the market for a one-bedroom apartment, preferably near family. She struggled to find a place she could afford as a widowed retiree.
Linder, 89, a San Francisco native who owned homes in Marin County where she lived with her husband, an attorney, left the state after the couple sold their Novato home in 2010. Her husband died in 2015 after a series of illnesses that drained their savings. She lived with a daughter in Georgia after that…