In OffBeat’s pages, we’ve covered the struggles that our musicians face as they age: illness and incapacity to work; bad business decisions that have impacted royalty income.

Many Americans have a safety net of savings or pensions or investments that can keep us afloat in our later years. Most musicians do not.

More often than not, musicians and the others employed (or self-employed) in the creative industries, such as artists, actors and performers, don’t have the luxury of a safety net. Organizations such as Actors’ Equity and the Actor’s Fund exist so that actors will have some recourse and a means of living to a dignified old age.

Musicians are the heart and soul of our creative community and currently there’s nowhere for them to go after retiring or for assisted living. Perhaps you may have wondered why so many jazz musicians are old? If your only source of income were the gigs you play, you’d never stop working because you’d have to, to survive.

The first time this hit home to me was when Tommy Ridgley was in the hospital, dying of lung cancer. I spoke with Tommy regularly, and when he was barely able to talk, he told me that he just “had to go back to work because without work, I have no money.” The man was dying, and he needed to go back to work to have an income.

I often see “Uncle” Lionel Batiste walking down Frenchmen Street, slowly because of his age, but with great dignity from the small apartment he lives in on Royal Street. Will he be able to afford living in his apartment when he gets too old to travel and work? Our beloved Harold Battiste lives alone in an apartment with no assistance and can no longer play.

Sweet Home New Orleans, the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic, MusiCares and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation are a few of the organizations that have assisted aging musicians, but they have limited funding. The Musicians Union has an “altruist” fund for members who become incapacitated and ill, but musicians often don’t take care of business records. “We’ve had some respected members who just had no money at all,” said Kim Foreman of the Musicians Local 174-96. “We’ve had to try to come up with money just to give them a decent burial because many times their families can’t do it. It’s a tragedy.”

There’s a retirement community that will include assisted living that’s being built outside Nashville. But nothing in Louisiana.

So there’s a real problem here, and it’s a pity and a shame that for all the pleasure and enrichment that our musicians have provided to us, there’s little for them to look forward to as they get older.