Crossville and the county

Cumberland County is unusually old, unusually mixed by income, and growing. Those three facts explain most of what follows. 1

• Population 64,480 2024, projected to grow 4.0% by 2029.
• Median age 54 Tennessee is 40.3. The United States is 39.1.
• Residents aged 65 and over 34.8% Roughly 18% nationally and statewide.
• Median household income $60,632 Against $75,149 nationally.
• Poverty rate 14.6%
• Above poverty but unable to afford basics 29% Working households, counted separately from the poverty figure.
• Unemployment 4.1% to 4.2% The national rate is 3.5%.

More than a third of the county is 65 or older, against roughly 18% nationally. A county built that way runs differently. Waiting lists are longer, volunteers do more, and the people who staff the restaurants and the clinics are a smaller share of the whole than you're probably used to.

There's a comfortable retired third, concentrated in places like Fairfield Glade and Lake Tansi, and there's a lower-wage service workforce that keeps the county running. Poverty stands at 14.6%. A further 29% of households are working, above the poverty line, and still can't reliably afford basics. 1

Food insecurity runs at 16%, above the 14% recorded nationally and statewide. The county's own focus groups recorded residents choosing between medication, food and utilities.

Income fixed and have to decide to pay for medication, food, or utilities.

Participant, 2025 Cumberland County health needs assessment focus groups

It shapes staffing, service hours, and how much of local life runs on volunteers. It's also why the county leans as hard as it does on people who have time, which after a few years will include you.

Tennessee levies no state income tax, which is a genuine and permanent advantage for a retired household. The combined sales tax here is 9.75%, being 7% state and 2.75% county, with nothing added by Crossville. 4 Which of the two matters more to you depends on whether your money mostly arrives as income or mostly leaves as spending.

County property tax runs at $1.1350 per $100 of assessed value, unchanged across 2024 and 2025. 3 Tennessee assesses a home at 25% of its appraised value, so a $350,000 house comes to roughly $993 a year. Confirm the real bill with the assessor before you count on that.

Average rent in Crossville was $848 a month, after a rise of 8.2% over a year. 2 It matters mainly if you plan to rent a season before committing, which is the best advice anyone gives about moving to a retirement destination.

Cumberland Medical Center is open and full-service, including maternity, and any claim otherwise is false. Beyond the hospital, the supply is thin. The county is a federally designated Health Professional Shortage Area for primary care, mental health and dental care, and a Medically Underserved Area. 1

• 2,762 residents per dentist, roughly double the national scarcity.
• 2,491 residents per mental health provider, against 500 in Tennessee and 300 nationally. Mental health is the county's top health priority.
• 1,561 residents per primary care physician.
• Crossville and the Glade have cardiology and orthopedic clinics; care beyond them means Cookeville or Knoxville, and residents rate specialty access poorly. 13

The healthcare page goes through all of this in detail , including the county EMS funding dispute and what to check before you move.

This is the chapter the brochures skip, and it's the one that decides how the last stretch goes. Cumberland County residents rated reliable, affordable transportation 1.29 out of 5 in the county's own survey, one of the worst-rated items on it. 1

• How residents rated reliable, affordable transportation 1.29 out of 5 Seventh-worst item in the county health needs assessment survey.
• Solo commuters driving 30 minutes or more 40%
• Crossville "Go" route Fare-free Since July 1, 2024.

What exists is a demand-response service through the Upper Cumberland Human Resource Agency: $2 a trip in-county, one way, with discounted rates for seniors, veterans and riders with disabilities, quoted when you book. Service runs 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays, and the agency's guidance says to book most rides 72 hours ahead. 5 Crossville also has two fare-free hourly loop routes, the Gold and the Blue, weekdays 7 to 5 and Saturdays 8 to 4, past the hospital, the groceries and the library. They carried 26,670 rides in this county in the agency's 2026 fiscal year. 6

Decide now, while you both still drive, what happens when one of you doesn't. A house near enough to walk somewhere, an adult child within a few hours, money set aside for private help. Any of those works. All of them are much harder to arrange after a fall.

The 2025 health needs assessment is unusually direct about what goes wrong here. Two of its focus group lines are worth reading exactly as recorded.

Senior spouse as caregiver of the other spouse and then they get sick or die.

Participant, 2025 Cumberland County health needs assessment focus groups

I've never been this age before.

Participant, 2025 Cumberland County health needs assessment focus groups

36% of county adults report loneliness, against 33% nationally. 1 A community with a full activity calendar helps with this. It doesn't solve it, particularly after a spouse dies or stops driving.

The county named something unusual as a priority in its own assessment: residents asked for a resource guide and help navigating services. The services exist. People can't find them. If you have a parent here, or you are the parent, that's the gap to plan around.

The Area Agency on Aging and Disability for this region is run by the Upper Cumberland Development District, and it is the correct first call. 10

The inventory, from the state's April 2026 licensure rolls: five assisted-care living facilities in the county, 290 licensed beds between them, one of them at the Glade itself, plus a 28-bed home for the aged. 14 The waiting list for in-home help under the state's OPTIONS program stood at 37 people across the Upper Cumberland district at the end of November 2024, the smallest of the state's nine regional lists, against 6,722 statewide. A short list can mean good coverage or few people asking; the report doesn't say which. 15

A county with this many recent arrivals and this few long-standing local connections is a target, and local law enforcement says so.

The Sheriff's Office has warned about fake "Final Notice, Court Enforcement Action" letters carrying QR codes and demanding payment, and about callers impersonating a sheriff's sergeant to demand money. 7 8 Do not use the number, link or QR code in the demand. Contact the named court or Sheriff's Office through contact information you found independently.

On contractors, Tennessee recorded 884 contractor complaints statewide in 2024, with about about $991,000 in penalties assessed. 9 A state contractor license is required before bidding or negotiating work costing $25,000 or more. Cumberland County is not one of the nine counties where Tennessee requires a Home Improvement license for general projects from $3,000 to under $25,000, although electrical, plumbing and local requirements can still apply. When a license is required, verify its status before work starts. For every job, get the scope, price and payment schedule in writing.

Two free Medicare resources are worth writing down. Upper Cumberland SHIP provides plan counseling at 931-432-4150. 11 To report suspected Medicare or Medicaid fraud, the Tennessee Senior Medicare Patrol directs callers to 1-866-836-7677. 12

Broadband here is better than the reputation suggests. Household coverage is around 88%, roughly the Tennessee average, and a Spectrum buildout covering about about 2,700 homes has been closing the remaining gaps. 16

Check the specific address rather than the county. Coverage figures are averages, and an average is cold comfort at the end of a long driveway.

People who join things do well here. So do households whose medical needs are routine rather than specialist-heavy, who drive comfortably and expect to for another decade, and who can absorb a cost increase they didn't vote for. Anyone who wanted four seasons and a lower tax bill, and did the arithmetic on both, tends to be glad they came.

It goes harder on a fixed income with no slack, or when care needs are already frequent and specialized, or for people who came for the price and found that distance has a price too. None of that is a reason to stay away. It's a reason to visit in February, rent first, and make the calls before rather than after.