Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Let's Try That Again: Aging In Place In Cohousing

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Mar 24, 2006, at 6:57 AM, Caren Albercook wrote:

> Hi Guys,
>    I'm really surprised by the lack of interest in
> this issue.  Maybe it's because I'm a physician and
> deal with this all day long that it's so real to me

I don't think it is lack of interest but an expectation on the part of 
those in cohousing communities that they will do for their neighbors 
what needs to be done on an individual basis. To some extent it depends 
on the relationships the person has formed in the community, the 
severity of the disability, and the willingness of the person to be 
helped. We all make adjustments for everyone in the community based on 
their ability to do or not do. Facilitators of meetings will speak with 
some members on issues after meetings because they weren't able to hear 
or follow all the discussion. In cohousing it doesn't take a "program" 
but responsiveness to individuals.

Work requirements for any disabled person are dropped in our community. 
We have many people who need assistance of one kind or another in but 
distribution by age is not apparent. I think that is important to 
remember. Our many 60+ members are much more hail and hearty more of 
the time than our -60s. We've been hit very hard in our first 6 years 
by pregnancies, births, and adoptions. Just as I once felt we needed 
some control of the number of elderly or people with chronic diseases 
that moved in, I now think "no more potentially pregnant."

There is also awareness that some jobs need to be reserved for those 
who can only do that job. But that is also not age related. We have 
several very busy professionals who need jobs they can do at midnight 
in China. We have an 80+ member who sweeps our walks. He does it as 
slowly as he pleases and we love it. No one else would think of 
rotating his job to someone else until he stops doing it. Probably what 
will happen is that someone will begin helping him when the walks start 
being too much for him.

>    The only wisdom I've reached so far is to get some
> system/expectations in place for our elders so that
> the transition is expected/smoothed/less stigmatized.

Building accessible facilities is probably the best preparation but 
again, those in our community who use these features the most are not 
elderly. We don't have fully accessible facilities (we have many 
stairs) but the common facilities are all accessible.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org