Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Re: Attracting Seniors & Ethnic Minorities

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

Peg Blum  pegb [at] cambridgecohousing.org (NEW ADDRESS)
is the author of the message below but due to a problem 
(posted from address other than subscribed address),
it was posted by Fred the Cohousing-L list manager:  fholson [at] cohousing.org

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It just happened!
At one point in our pre-construction days one of our 40 year-olds said 
she really didn't want to live in a retirement community!  She was 
sitting at one of our meetings and realized there were too many 
gray-haired folks in the circle.  So we had the opposite problem and had 
to get busy attracting young people, especially families with young 
children.  Lots of young families apparently move to the suburbs from 
Cambridge as their children enter school.  Of our 41 households, we were 
fortunate to end up with about 1/3 families with kids under age 15;
about 15 of us (another 1/3), now either at retirement age or retired; 
and the rest younger.  Our ages range from 1yr to 81yrs!
I wonder if part of the reason we have so many older folks is because we 
are an urban community.  Several of us sold houses in the suburbs 
wanting to move back to the city, others had large houses in Cambridge, 
Brookline or Somerville and decided life would be better in cohousing.
(These folks also had the resources to buy property in Cambridge.)

Peg Blum