Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Assisted living and CoHousing

[Lynn Nadeau / Maraiah (welcome]

At RoseWind Cohousing (long built, in Port Townsend WA) we are mostly still 
active and competent, but many of us are old enough that we are looking ahead 
for ways that will use our community connections to ease our lives as we become 
less able. 

Some first steps we are already looking at are sharing services for periodic 
housekeeping help, yard-work help, and food preparation. We are talking with a 
local cook about what it would take to create a Soup Subscription. A cook 
might, for example, come and use our community kitchen once a week to make some 
gallons of soup, with people committing to buying a certain quantity on a 
regular basis. 

Farther down the line, we wonder how we might share the services of a 
personal-care assistant, perhaps coming up with a combination of employers who 
would add up to a full-time contract for the provider. My detail mind wonders 
how one determines who gets first dibs on such an employee's schedule, but I 
suppose there are ways. 

Another way people have already helped each other here has been as support for 
people who land up in our one local "skilled nursing facility": a 
franchise-run, under-staffed outfit. If you're in there, it really helps to 
have friends bringing food, watch-dogging the nursing care, etc. We've also 
shared transportation and other help for members dealing with chemo and such. 

Maraiah Lynn Nadeau
www.rosewind.org