Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Unoccupied Units & the Effect on Workshare

[Kathleen Lowry (kathleenlowrylpcclmft]

Virgil, Thank you for your comment. Yes, at 69 safety in every way becomes more 
and more in the forefront of my concerns too. I wonder if there are such things 
as senior home care collectives or coops where a group of seniors could 
coordinate and share costs for a  combination of  health and home care, but not 
sure about the need for socializing and community. 

> On Jan 23, 2023, at 12:32 PM, Virgil Huston <virgil.huston1955 [at] 
> gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> As an older person, one reason co-housing is not an attractive option (the
> main reason is price) is becoming unwelcome where I live at some point. I
> can't imagine that. I own my small house and, at this point, will stay here
> until forced into a nursing home or something. To be honest, I think at
> times I have equated co-housing to the long dead in the US concept of
> multi-generational living that is so common in many cultures. You know, the
> idea that multi-generations live together or in close proximity,
> grandparents take care of the young children, cook and clean, the adult
> kids work, everyone is happy. At some point, the grandparents need care and
> can no longer work and they figure it out. LOL. It just doesn't work that
> way here, although some cultures do this very well, even in the US. This is
> just an observation based on what I see and think about at my age. Getting
> old in the US (and many other places) is scary as hell. At least in my
> house I own, no one is mad at me for not contributing to a community. No
> one yells at me because my house isn't the cleanest, and so on.
> 
> Cheers,
> Virgil
> 
>> On Sun, Jan 22, 2023 at 3:02 PM Kathleen Lowry <
>> kathleenlowrylpcclmft [at] gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Sharon, Your openness and honesty is such a gift. Thank you. Kathleen
>> 
>>> On Jan 22, 2023, at 1:19 PM, Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L <
>> cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> On Jan 15, 2023, at 11:59 AM, Marilyn Seiler <
>> marilynseiler72 [at] gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> I would appreciate feedback and discussion on the increasing
>>>> number of members absent from the community for extended periods of
>> time.
>>> 
>>> We have been pretty clear with each other that we don’t expect people to
>> move in planning to live part-time somewhere else. We have been lucky since
>> we don’t have it written down anywhere—we just talk about it. During the
>> Pandemic, 2-3 households at a time were living elsewhere, usually with
>> family out of the city. Some have since moved.
>>> 
>>> We have one unit that has been rented for the maximum amount of time
>> allowed (3-4 years) and is still empty. This has led to reconsidering our
>> rental policy and the effect of non-resident sort-of-present owners —
>> living elsewhere in town but not ready to sell.
>>> 
>>> Cohousing communities in the Sunbelt and the Snowbelt have worried about
>> this. In a small community it makes a big difference to have a hole next
>> door. The unit next to me will be empty for 6 months and has been empty at
>> times for a year or more before. I feel the lack of neighbors especially
>> because I have an end unit.
>>> 
>>>> I would like to include members who are physically and mentally
>> incapacitated
>>>> and unable to participate. They have adequate paid support but the paid
>>>> support does not participate in any community tasks or events except to
>>>> occasionally assist in getting the member to the event and remaining to
>>>> assist as necessary.
>>> 
>>> This seems not to be as worrisome if the person has been living in the
>> community for years and contributed in many ways and becomes unable to
>> contribute. But what happens when a person wants to move in who can’t or
>> doesn’t plan to contribute from day one? Our only protection is making the
>> expectations clear. But I suppose we could also make an agreement with such
>> a person to pay a workshare fee.
>>> 
>>>> It also adds work to the participating members in
>>>> many very small additional tasks we perform to assure the safety and
>>>> well-being of the member.
>>> 
>>> This is one of the issues with rented units. One household has rented
>> their unit for the 3 months they have summered elsewhere and another has
>> exchanged homes with a household in the Servas program. The renters have
>> most often (always?) been delightful people who did contribute but it is
>> still extra work for others to orient people and caution them about stuff.
>>> 
>>>> I know that I would like to remain in my home
>>>> until I die, but is it fair to the Community to have a non-participating
>>>> member, maybe as long as 2-3 years? How do we as a Community address
>> this
>>>> ever-increasing issue?
>>> 
>>> In order to have people stay in their homes until death do us part, we
>> need a plan. A friend has her favorite cartoon posted over her desk: Two
>> prisoners are shackled hand and foot to the stone wall in a dungeon. And
>> one says, “What we need is a plan.” It feels like that some days.
>>> 
>>> I think cohousing might have a lot to learn from senior living
>> communities and continuing care facilities. They have experience with the
>> balance of age groups and identified risks in terms of debilitating
>> conditions. They carefully balance the ages and conditions of new residents
>> so it is manageable. They know how many residents are likely to need
>> “memory care”, for example. How many people it takes to staff a unit of
>> single-room residences with shared common areas.
>>> 
>>> This long trail of a message is to tie all these issues together into
>> the workshare thread. A resident with an MBA who had also been president of
>> a coop board and worked in a law firm, once said that our workforce was 1/3
>> the number of our residents. Without actually tracking this on paper, I
>> think they were right.
>>> 
>>> The estimate was that at any given time 1/3 would be ill or otherwise
>> overwhelmed with the demands of their personal lives and another 1/3 would
>> be people who were not highly competent or leaderly or entertaining. They
>> contribute at some level but can’t be depended on to do things as well as
>> others might want them done. I think that may be underestimating the
>> abilities of that 1/3, but it isn’t too far off. This includes people who
>> need a lot of coaxing, reminding, and supervision. Some are more hesitant
>> than incapable.
>>> 
>>> The people in each 1/3 change from one year to the next, but at any
>> given time of 60 adult residents, it might be standard that 20 will be the
>> people who are taking leadership in planning and doing activities. Another
>> 20 will participate in this or that and come to workdays sometimes. And 20
>> will be in various conditions of unavailable. Sounds bleak but more
>> realistic than expecting everyone to do 6 hours a month.
>>> 
>>> We tend to look at one list of jobs and another list of members and try
>> to match them up. What we probably need to do more is look at the history
>> of the community and the size of the most available workforce. How many
>> people at any given time are readily available? How many people will be
>> stressed out looking for jobs? Finding daycare? Recovering from ____?
>> Taking time out because they are still angry about some decisions made last
>> year.
>>> 
>>> When I come up against questions like this I wish I had kept a log.
>> Although I probably wouldn’t have thought to keep track of these kinds of
>> things.
>>> 
>>> Sharon
>>> ----
>>> Sharon Villines
>>> Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
>>> http://www.takomavillage.org
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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