Re: Elder Care In Community
From: Craig Ragland (craigraglandgmail.com)
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:31:27 -0800 (PST)
Hi Caren, I think this is a HUGE issue where we, as a movement, can add a
lot of value to our lives. At Songaia, a Seattle-area community of 13 units
(tip of the hat to Sharon), we've been in a long-standing dialog about this,
and have begun by focusing on acute health care (note: so far, none of our
elders, six members are above 60 and one is 70, have long term issues that
have called for special attention by the community).

What Songaia does today is (1) have a care conference, in which everybody is
invited to discuss the special needs of the member, (2) designate a specific
support coordinator, (3) create a signup sheet to schedule specific support
tasks, (4) expect the support coordinator to help the community provide the
support (they bird-dog us, something we find is also required for our food
program to thrive). Optionally, there may be support circles to help the
person face the issue.

Currently, we have one member who needs special support. She had a care
conference (which I did not attend, though I have been to related ones for
this member). The support coordinator has really been doing her job - she
requested that my wife and I prepared one lunch and a dinner for that member
on a night with no common meal. And a number of Songaians, including the
kids, have spent some more time with her since she's been less mobile.

I really like the idea of a community coop that might pool resources to
better provide support and look forward to learning how other cohousing
communities address this. The issue of aging members is one faced by many
communities, both cohousing and beyond. This is perhaps most pressing for
older communities, with long-term members. I understand, for example, that
Twin Oaks (a shared-income community) is not interested in new members who
are older. Cohousing has an advantage over some other forms of communities,
in that we tend to have more resources and can often afford more. Cohousing
has a disadvantage over some other forms of communities, in that we tend to
rely more on individual resources and may not figure out ways to share quite
so readily.

In community, Craig

On 3/21/06, Caren Albercook <calbercook [at] yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> several of our members are in precarious health.
> I was talking with my neighbor last weekend and got a
> vibrant look into her support needs and the fact that
> she expects she'll have to leave us when her health
> falters.  I don't want that to happen and have been
> talking with others about how to add elder care as a
> dimension of our community living, to keep our older
> members in community till the end.


Some of us are talking about starting an
> elder care coop to save money ahead for this coming
> challenge.  But some of us are talking about buying a
> unit here with combined financial resources and
> finding a couple to live rent free in exchange for
> elder care.  Maybe we'll even get to the point where
> we can buy a van for those who can no longer drive.




Has anybody in a mixed
> age group thought about this?  What are you doing?
> How did it go?
>

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