Sunday Denver Post - April 3, 2005 - Boomers Get a Hand with Elders’ Details

By Jack Cox,  Denver Post Staff Writer

When her mother died in Denver last August, Maxine Garrett inherited what's known in the elder care community as a "path house" - a dwelling so full of stuff it was almost uninhabitable.

"It was floor to ceiling with just junk. My mom was a pack rat in the worst way," says Garrett, a 50-year-old single mother from California. "There was quite literally a path from the front door to the back."

Stacks of old newspapers jostled for space with sacks of aluminum cans. A couch was inundated with used clothing, collected to give to the homeless but never delivered. And everywhere, it seemed, were boxes filled with Avon products, including dolls, jewelry and more than 300 stuffed animals.

"She would buy things just to stay in the 'President's Club,"' Garrett laments. "Consequently, things just piled up like crazy."

With a 14-year-old daughter and a home-based business she couldn't afford to put on hold, Garrett had neither time nor energy to go through her mother's belongings, cancel accounts and tie up all the other loose ends.

So she turned to Family Matters, a Denver firm that specializes in handling such details, easing the burden on survivors who already are under considerable stress.

The company, believed to be the first in the country to provide such a service, performed some 120 different tasks for Garrett, from notifying creditors and tracking down insurance policies to hiring a house organizer and finding a storage unit where everything worth saving could be kept.

It even put Garrett in touch with a home-buying firm that made an immediate offer on her mother's red brick bungalow and put a contract in the mail the next day.

"All I did was sign my name, and I got a lot more money than I ever expected," she says. "This was just a great relief. It really saved my life in a lot of ways."

Funeral director John Horan, president of Horan & McConaty, a Denver mortuary, says Family Matters is meeting a growing need. "Cleaning up all the myriad legal and practical details that ensue after a death occurs is extremely time-consuming, and in this day and age, people lead very busy and hectic lives," Horan says.

"When I meet with a family (of a deceased elder), it's likely that all the children and all their spouses are employed, so who's going to be available to take care of these matters? What Family Matters is trying to do is things that don't require a lawyer, but nevertheless must be taken care of to settle these affairs."

The firm, based in the Denver Tech Center, was founded by Gregg Dirks, 45, a former financial planner who grew up in the funeral business in small-town Minnesota, and Bob Fetter, 48, a former data systems developer with experience in senior housing.

"A lot of what we do is minutiae that you could do, but the question is, do you want to?" Dirks says. "Do you want to spend 20 minutes on hold with an insurance company because it has been sold three or four times and the name on the policy has changed?"

The firm's clients are typically baby boomers - and not just because the boomers are famous for refusing to be put on hold for anything short of death itself. The main reason is that boomers, whose parents are now mostly in their 70s and 80s, are commonly going through this life experience, and they "are used to paying for services," Dirks says.

Some clients call on Family Matters before a death occurs, for help with such challenges as moving an aging loved one into assisted living or setting up a transition plan in advance of that eventuality.

Denver attorney Joe Dawson, for example, retained the firm to put together a detailed plan for relocating his parents, should it become necessary for them to move out of their townhouse in Colorado Springs.

"In any transition, there are a lot of details, and when you start talking about the elderly, it's not going to be them who are taking care of things," Dawson says.

"And it's never good to wait, especially when you're dealing with estate planning or organizing things, because what happens is that when somebody passes, your options are closed off. The whole definition of planning is so you can make decisions yourself."

Sheri Engstrom of Evergreen, the current Mrs. Colorado USA, contacted Family Matters about a year ago when she and her older brother and sister concluded that their 82-year- old father could no longer live safely by himself in his apartment in Arvada.

"We didn't know where to turn, or even where to start, to find him another place to live," says Engstrom. "They organized his finances, got him qualified for Medicaid and lined up a couple of assisted-living centers for us to visit, and within a few weeks he was moved into one of them. It has lifted an incredible weight off our shoulders, just knowing that if something should happen, he's in great hands, and that as more needs come up, we have a plan."

Family Matters charges $2,600 for its full range of services, or on a "pre-need" basis. It also offers a more limited financial accounting for less.

For details, visit www.familymattersusa.com or call 720-488-1728.

For every unpleasant task there’s a company to handle it.  Case in point: Family Matters, a Denver-based firm that manages the details after the death of a parent or spouse, from notifying creditors to canceling magazines to helping sell a house. 

In 2006 the company plans to open offices in Arizona, Minnesota and West Virginia (though the Denver office works with clients nationally). 

The cost: $2,600 for the full range of 120 services (866-488-1728; www.familymattersusa.com).