Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Fifty Plus Cohousing

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

Anne Kopp Hyman  annehyman1 [at] aol.com
is the author of the message below. 
It was posted by Fred the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org> 
--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------


Thanks to all of you who are into the inquiry about  Fifty-Plus Cohousing or 
what might be called "Theme-centered Cohousing".  I posted the request  to 
hear from people who might be interested in living with people who may be 
retired or planning retirement.

There's lots to say about it,  and you all are presenting some great 
arguments.  And what you are saying proves the point:  Cohousing includes an 
understanding about people's needs,  and we aint all alike.  So some of us 
might prefer to be with people who have similar backgrounds.  Why not?  And 
we can still have the great things that happen in Cohousing.

Actually I Have lived in  a multi-generation  Cohousing experiment, and there 
were great things about it.  And it was also harder in some ways to meet all 
of our needs, from age 2 to 92.  We had "sub-groups"--because that's what 
life is like sometimes.  Couples,  families with children,  a few single 
older men and women;  some people worked outside;  some worked at home;  some 
didn't work.  So now I want to join with some of  others who want to be 
creative about meeting each other's individual and community needs.  I have 
already heard of one woman who wants to leave her  cohousing community after 
10 years because she is very uncomfortable about not being able to do what 
needs to be done in a cooperative.  Another left because there were not 
enough older people to socialize with;  it was lonely there.  Another left 
because there was no agreement  or procedure  about group process  or skills 
for interpersonal relationships.  Others needed to be included more.

Cohousing for those of us who are older would be just the opposite of a 
retirement setting.  How wonderful for us to be involved--from the very 
beginning--in building our lives as well as our houses--our dreams--putting 
our skills to work for us--with people who understand us.  We would not have 
to have staff doing things for us, unless we made those decisions ourselves 
and we supervized them, rather than have them supervise and control us.

  I have been involved with Cohousing since Chuck and Katie first wrote about 
it.  I'm even writing about it myself.  It's great to think about it as a 
possibility  for what I'm going to do with the rest of my life.  No nursing 
home or assisted living or retirement or living with my children for me!  I 
want to help plan my future with some kindred souls who want to be with me 
and others like me!  So spread the word?

    I was just told by a real estate person that there's land available  near 
the mountains East of San Diego.  I've been here a year, and it's really 
paradise here!  Join me in paradise?

Anne Kopp Hyman


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