Senior Co-Housing
While doing research for myself on my Self-Build my mother asked me to view some senior residential houses in the midlands. I thought the nursing home was ok (she's not ready for that yet though!) but the associated accommodation meant to support independent lifestyles was awful. The houses were laid out like a normal housing estate with a road through it and no obvious communal area or sense of community. It just felt wrong. I decided to see if there was a better approach and found the following book online:
Senior Cohousing Handbook, 2nd Edition (Senior Cohousing Handbook: A Community Approach to Independent Living) - written by Charles Durrett
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0865716110/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1So, I got a chance to delve in it this weekend and I was very impressed. The author spent over a year visiting communities in Denmark and the USA to give us a good account of what works, why and how to approach such an endeavour. Most Senior Co-Housing has number of around 25 units ideally but 20-35 isn't unheard of. In Denmark if more than 25 people from an area register their interest, a coordinator is dispatched to set up an information meeting and engage with local officials. Then from that meeting if a consensus is reached, a core grouped can be formed to begin the journey.
So what about Ireland & the UK? I found the following BBC video but it shows that after 18 years the first Senior Co-Housing unit is only opening it doors this year after some of the original members have passed away:
I emailed Age Action in Ireland to find out if any such units exist here. I did visit Cloughjordan with my mum earlier this year and that is a great example of inter-generational co-housing, more along the lines of what they call permaculture, but it's not quite what I was after.
Cloughjordan links:
Age Action:
Irish Council for Social Housing:
Retirement Villages:
I'm not gong after social housing, many independent seniors own their own house but it's too large or remote for them and isn't always built to be part of a community, it's just another house on a long street with others. The last link provides an interesting development called Middletown House. Now I'm not sure how it's run but it looks to be laid out like a senior co-housing development would be.
Apart from this example it appears there's no current example of Senior Co-Housing in Ireland today and if we're lagging behind the UK as we tend to do we're looking at 5-8 years before any get off the ground.
In the USA there are non-profit developers who specialise in this and facilitators available to help core groups go through a three part programme as discussed in the book listed earlier. It's worth buying just to see what they talk about. The first workshop deals with what it means to grow old and really looks at the options square on. It doesn't force anyone to go down the Senior Co-Housing route, some valid options such as moving in with a daughter or care in their own home may be more realistic. The one comment that people who opted for moving into a Senior Co-Housing model was to "not be a bother to their kids". By getting to know each other during the 2-3 years it takes to develop, plan and build the units, the group get to know and rely on each other.
Why Senior Co-Housing? Well the development itself is laid out very carefully, think on this:
- Small houses of between 800-1,000 square feet
- One central large common house @ 3-4,000 square feet - for communal meals and laundry
- All houses face the common house, their kitchens on this side and bedrooms / living space and garden at the quieter & private rear of each property
- Parking around the outside of the development
The idea is you can see from the kitchen if any activity is happening around the common area and join in (or not!). The common area is used for communal meals in which cooking responsibilities are rotated around. People tend to go there around 50-60% of the time so it's not compulsory. You just put your name in the hat that morning for the common potluck dinner! There are communal laundry facilities. You have to walk to your car so the likelihood of passing people and having a chat is high. It's all designed to create a community that involves and embraces contact between neighbours. The common house often contains self contained bedrooms to allow relatives stay overnight or to have a live in care giver to service the community more effectively.
The site below provides links to the book above but also workbooks used in the workshop approach the author refers to:
Now, you can do this any number of ways but learning from past examples will help you ask the right questions at the right time and I hope to find myself part of such a scheme in the years ahead. It sounds like just the level of social activity to help couples in their 50's take control of their future and if one should pass away rely on the support of their friends and neighbours in that tight knit village to help them through those difficult times. How may widows and widowers go home to an empty house and shrivel with no one to call on them. The common area is such a great idea but no housing development really provides it today in Ireland, you come and go as you please but long streets are no substitute for a porch you can sit on and wave at people going by and beckon them over for a quick chat to pass the day....those small villages are long gone.
The houses themselves can be constructed to save energy and be cheaper to run but all those decisions can be taken by the core group among many others, some of the most important being a charter of what's expected of each resident and clarify other important questions. It's all about consensus and learning to live again in a larger "family".
With people living longer and retirement age increasing there is massive pressure on finding large houses for young families. By promoting senior communities like these it would allow those larger home to be freed up and give seniors a much more supportive role in the community rather than relegating them to unproductive pension takers in societies eyes. Until their turn comes of course!!
I hope this gives Irish people an insight into a better possibility for their future and I hope someday it's embraced by Government, Developers and Architects to help us take care of our seniors who took care of us so well. Comments Welcome!
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