Re: New View as a model of possibility
From: Lavinia Weissman (subscriptionsworkecology.com)
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 11:12:15 -0700 (PDT)
Jim,

I don't know if we met or if you remember me.

I came out with a group of people from Shambhala, who dispersed and
subdivided in numerous paths. They started researching cohousing after Jon
Barbieri from the Boulder area came and met with people interested in
cohousing and sparked people to investigate. Since I am half Californian
and half Bostonian, this was not a new conversation for me.  Adopting
cohousing in the US is also a transition since more countries, e.g.
Denmark and Sweden where cohousing first took off are built on a value of
social capital we don't have in this country. For example, in Sweden the
day a couple decides to get divorced, the state assures health care and
child support through the government and pushes resolution on a structure
for the children that is healthy.

Single moms are supported through government grants to get the education
in line with their intelligence and capacity to learn so they can earn an
income up the road that is liveable as opposed to the US attitude of
Welfare to Work, which rewards you with a job in McDonalds if you are
illiterate and learn how to read, or disenfranchises you if you are
already able to work at a career for liveable wage and have the
responsibility of elder care and child care.  Research in Boston found a
corelation between lack of community, care giving demands (special need
kids, elder care sandwiching) that grew into a form of poverty cohousing
has been thought to counter act.

Dr. Bill Thomas has now shown in his research similar correlations with
elders that is led Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to invest $10M in
capitalizing Green House Elder communities where it is now known that this
form of living reduces medication use, dysfunctional giving up and
debilitating depression that ages an elder into a care giving state
because there is no community support to keep a person active and
independent with codependent living.

I can yammer on this for ever. When I had dinner at New View the fact that
your community thought this way symbolized an emotional intelligence I see
woven into Harmony Village, while I live here temporarily in Golden Co.



Someone who hosted my visiting group at New View, 3 years ago, spoke to
this aging in place phenomena, that I happen to know a lot about because
of my field of work.

I think about how to deal with money, plan and adapt to life cycles and
transitions and more in what I call WorkEcology. I also think about what
it means to embrace and live with gracefully forms of chronic illness that
normally isolate people and bankrupt them if they don't have a community
or wise WorkEcology Coaching to really grapple with how to find community,
deal with money and deal with employment in ways that can take care of
someone.

Your community was the only community I met with that identified how your
idealism for creating a family community got in the way of coming to grips
with what happens in life, e.g. divorce, aging and children growing older.

I appreciated how you consciously supported a couple of single women who
stuck with you through the 10 years formation and build out and had a
struggle with the increased costs that emerged over the 10 year cycle. As
a Massachusetts resident, I know specific to Massachusetts how challenging
that one is.

BTW, it struck me very humorous that when I turned 50 I got a AARP card.
The reality is that card is more a symbol of the fact it is time to think
differently than to think about getting old.  The philanthropist that
started AARP also invested in helping a friend of mine learn how to adapt
home design to aging in place and donated money to USC to think about such
things. More of us have to do that. It is not about getting old and
resigned, it is about organizing work, life, family and more to a pace of
life that is healthy. It's ashame in the US we don't do more of that at a
younger age.

Best,
Lavinia


On Thu, April 26, 2007 1:34 pm, Jim Snyder-Grant wrote:
> Lavinia:
>
> Thanks for your kind words about New View, and good luck in your search.
>
> You are right about the challenges of aging in place. With so little
> turnover, and so few new babies, we are approximately 10 years older
> at New View than we were a decade ago.  I just got my AARP card in the
> mail, and the dinners are getting quieter & quieter.
>
> We have started having some salons focused on aging in place at New
> View. It's been a delightful and occasionally challenging set of
> conversations. Certainly the mix of our housing stock will need some
> adjustment if we are to make this work, perhaps making some dwellings
> in to multiple-household situations. And of course there are all the
> legal, emotional, logistical, architectural, financial, (etc)
> challenges.
>
> Chuck Durrett's book on elder cohousing has been helpful.
>
> -Jim
> --
> Jim Snyder-Grant
> 18 Half Moon Hill
> Acton MA 01720
> 978 266-9409
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/
>
>
>


-- 
Lavinia Weissman
Managing Director
www.workecology.com/redesign2
617.461.0500

See my profile at
www.linkedin.com/in/laviniaweissman

About my coaching practice:
www.workecology.com/coaching.html

Share WorkEcology Bookmarks at del.icio.us
http://del.icio.us/rss/WorkEcology

Results generated by Tiger Technologies Web hosting using MHonArc.