Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Inter-generational age-in-place co-housing communities - are there any out there?

[mira Danyel brisk (mirabepeace]

Jean and others,
I too love this question and I'm sure it speaks to a lot of people's
concerns and needs. You are far from alone.
One thing this makes me thing of is something I heard from Charles Durrett
at the national conference recently. There are ways that the social
structure of a community can also 'compensate' for part of what the
physical structure may not have - for example, in a senior cohousing
community, they decided to make it 2 stories due to financial
considerations and implemented 'agreements' between the members that if
someone who lived on the 2nd floor needed to move to the first floor later
on for medical / accessibility reasons, they could switch with someone!  I
thought this was a great example of how the social 'infrastructure' is AS
important (if not more important) to look into when we are talking about a
cohousing community.  There is a lot more than meets the eye.

I love the suggestions for communities to have support for elderly similar
to child care etc.  If there are not already communities that do this,
there certainly will be very soon!  I look forward to hearing more about
what is currently available and what is being created and supporting the
process!

- Mira, Charlotte Cohousing, Coho/US Outreach Assistant


On Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 9:16 PM, Alice Alexander <alicecohous [at] gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> Jean, good for you for your considerations. I will respond to you with some
> suggestions off-list.
> Alice Alexander, Coho/US Executive Director
>
> On Thu, Aug 6, 2015 at 9:06 AM, Jean Foster <jean [at] jeanfoster.org> wrote:
>
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I’m in my 60’s and have recently been struggling with caring for my own
> > elderly parents which has made me think seriously about how I want to
> spend
> > the rest of my life.
> >
> > I did try searching through the list archives and came across some
> > discussions but didn’t find exactly what I was looking for:
> > Age and end my days in my own home and community
> > Ideally this would mean homes constructed to be accessible or easily made
> > accessible from the start as well as accessible common areas
> > Live in an inter-gen community (not senior-only)
> > The community helps provide support for elderly community members needs
> > (the way many communities provide space and activities for children, e.g.
> > day care, sitting co-ops, etc)
> > A plan for allowing the elderly continue to share responsibilities as
> > their abilities decline
> > + everything else co-housing provides
> >
> > Is there anyone out there already doing this or planning such a
> community?
> >
> > thanks,
> > -jean-
> > _________________________________________________________________
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> > http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Alice Alexander
> Executive Director
> www.cohousing.org <http://www.cohous.org>
> [image: The Cohousing Association]
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/
>
>
>


-- 

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*Mira Danyel Brisk*
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