Re: Fifty Plus Cohousing
From: Kay Argyle (argylemines.utah.edu)
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 20:57:04 -0700 (MST)
> No nursing home or assisted living or
> retirement or living with my children for me!
> Anne Kopp Hyman

This was an idea that drew me to cohousing -- that, when the time came, with
neighbors who looked in when they were going to the store to ask if I needed
milk, or whom I could ask for a ride to the doctor, I could live
independently much longer.

In my grandmother's last decade of life, the grandson who rented the farm
cared for the yard as well, and carried the mail down the long drive to the
house.  She had Meals on Wheels, and from time to time a college student to
help with a little housework in return for cheap room and board, and
neighbors and church members dropping in all day, but a lot of it --
shopping, driving her to weekly doctor and beautician appointments, picking
up prescriptions, taking the car for servicing and inspection -- fell to my
Mom, who was having health problems herself.  Even when Grandma wasn't going
along on the errand, so there wasn't the problem for getting her and the
wheelchair in and out of the hatchback's bucket seats and high trunk sill,
Mom would leave it at Grandma's and take Grandma's old Ford -- partly to
keep it running, but partly to take advantage of the handicap sticker
herself.  She was only half joking when she complained that Grandma in her
wheelchair was more mobile than she was.

And this is exactly my worry about seniors cohousing -- After a few years,
would you have a sufficient core of able-bodied (slightly) younger folks to
help keep frail elderly members in their homes?

An age-distributed community will have more age groups with fewer members in
each than an age-selected community will.  Further, if American cohousing
communities have age spreads typical for American communities in general,
the number of members will be greater in younger age groups.

Thus --
If in two communities of the same size, one with members aged 0-99 and the
other 50-99, there are (to pick simple numbers out of a hat)
* five 50- to 59-yr-olds for every one 90- to 99-yr-old, plus
* ten under-10s to every one 90-99 in the 0-99 community, and
* an even distribution in between,
you would have
* more than three times as many members in each age bracket 50-99 in the
age-selected community (50-99) as in the age-distributed one (0-99).
So if in both communities
* 50% of people aged 80-99 need some assistance, and
* another 50% aged 70-99 can manage on their own but not offer assistance,
the age-selected community has three times as many in each of those
categories -- leaving fewer able-bodied adults to do the assisting.

On the other hand, in the age-distributed community the population includes
those ten little kids needing care, and nine possibly unhelpful teenagers.
So maybe that community actually has fewer adults to look after its
dependents (and clean the common house and other community work).

I definitely would give serious thought to disabilities, and do contingency
planning.  Also think about what happens if somebody ends up as guardian to
their grandchildren.

Kay
Wasatch Commons
where townhouse construction means that someday members who can't manage
stairs will have to sleep in their living rooms, or buy one of the
single-level units from their low-income owners.

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