Archive for the 'Senior Living' Category

Senior Cohousing: Establishing a Healthy, Sustainable Lifestyle for an Aging Generation

Published
by
charlesdurrett
on July 16, 2009
in Cohousing and Senior Living
. 0 Comments

Senior Cohousing: Establishing a Healthy, Sustainable Lifestyle for an Aging Generation – by Chuck Durrett

Last year Americans drove 5 billion miles caring for seniors in their homes (Meals on Wheels, Whistle Stop Nurses, and so on).  In our small, semi-rural county in the Sierra foothills, Telecare made 60,000 trips in massive, lumbering, polluting vans-buses – usually carrying only one senior at a time – schlepping a couple thousand seniors total over hill and dale to doctor’s appointments, to pick up medicine, or to see friends.  In our cohousing community of 21 seniors, I have never seen a single Telecare bus in the driveway.  In cohousing it happens organically by caring neighbors: “Can I catch a ride with you?”; “Are you headed to the drug store?”, etc.  And this alternative is much more fun and inexpensive for all involved, and much less damaging to the environment.  Wolf Creek Lodge, a new senior cohousing community about to start construction, has 30 units to be built on 1 acre within walking distance of downtown Grass Valley, population 12,000.  Top of mind, one future household will be moving from a 20 acre lot, 9 miles from town, another from 15 acres, also 9 miles out of town, and another from 13 acres, 7 miles from town. These are young seniors planning not only to live more sustainably, but more fulfilling as well.  

Bill Thomas, M.D. and prominent author on issues affecting seniors, describes our currently predominant scenario of caring for seniors as the “$3 trillion dollar dilemma.”  The cost of care for  the 78 million new senior/baby boomers “coming of age” in the next 20 years will be $3 trillion dollars more per year than it is now (and that is in a nation with a $13 trillion dollar GDP — to put it into perspective).  It goes without saying, that the current pattern is not sustainable from an environmental, cultural or financial point of view.  

President Obama has announced that for us to arrest global warming, we will have to reduce carbon emissions by 2% per year until 2050.  It seems doable, but last year, carbon emissions increased by 1.4% — we are headed in the wrong direction.  Given this situation, we’ve got to do something. We need to think collectively about how to set seniors up for success and to help them achieve their full potential into their last 20-30 years and how to set the environment up for success at the same time. Cohousing is for seniors who want to be a part of the solution.  

We can help seniors fulfill their desires for a more rewarding living arrangement that better supports their well being, physically, socially and emotionally.  And the good news is that I haven’t witnessed anyone having more fun since the college dorms, than seniors living in cohousing — and I’ve never seen anyone live more sustainably (for example, my electric bill last year was minus $83.84).  Senior Cohousing: A Community Approach to Independent Living, second edition published by New Society Publishers (www.newsociety.com) — and the type of communities it describes and helps to create — allows seniors to live lightly on the planet and to enhance their quality of life at the same time. 

My presentation schedule is here:  http://www.cohousingco.com/senior-cohousing.cfm

Please send to your friends, family, and other folks who you believe would appreciate a more supportive and sustainable lifestyle.

Thanks very much,

Chuck Durrett, AIA

Book Signing for new edition of Senior Cohousing

Published
by
charlesdurrett
on April 21, 2009
in Cohousing, Group Formation, Senior Living and Upcoming Events
. 0 Comments

One of the best ways to get a new senior cohousing community started in your town is to organize a book signing at your local, if not larger, yet preferably independent bookstore.  The best method to get that started is to walk into the store with a copy of the new book, and several press clippings about senior cohousing — which is easy since last year cohousing was on the front page of the L.A. Times last year, and the N.Y. Times the year before that — and a great A.P. story by Andrea Sainz just appeared in 320 newspapers nation wide.  If you’re serious about planning a book signing or just want to get the book into your local book store, send a self addressed 10” x 17” envelope and we’ll put a press package in the mail to you with 10 – 15 news articles about Senior Cohousing.  

Bookstores often say that they only carry books if the book or the concept has received significant press or if people are coming in the door asking for it.  You will need to show the “significant press.”  But we find that once we show the plethora of news articles, bookstores are game to give it a try — and end up pleasantly surprised with the number of book sales.  Rick, the bookstore manager of Elliot Bay Books in Seattle, Washington says that our first book sold over 550 copies after the signing we did there.  It also resulted in about a dozen communities being built in the Seattle area.  

For more information on this topic check out the blog at http://www.mccamant-durrett.com

The Senior Predicament

Published
by
admin
on February 3, 2009
in Senior Living
. 1 Comment

“I’m getting old, and everything around me is getting old too,”  said Margo Smith, the 70-year-old white-haired organizer of a Grey Panther meeting of six women and two men in Berkeley, California.

“I live in an older house, and just getting a leaky faucet fixed seems to take days of time – if I can find the money and someone to do it. I have to pay, pay, pay to have small things done. I am completely encumbered by my house and I’m not interested, or even willing, to encumber the lives of my children. They have their own families now, not to mention the careers I encouraged them to have.”

“My next door neighbors are a young family on one side, and a single guy on the other. When I drive to see others my own age, people get behind me and honk – it might be my neighbors, for all I know. Just because my reactions have gotten slow, which is why I drive slowly, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t spend time with others I have something in common with. But I do wish I had a community based more on proximity.”

Across the Atlantic, 71-year-old Else Skov lives in a large two-bedroom apartment in a senior cohousing community in Denmark. She moved into her home some 15 years ago with her husband, who died two years ago. She is not lonely, largely due to the community’s unique layout, which includes a common house where residents can meet with other residents after dinner to exchange stories and jokes, or make plans to go to the opera together.

The difference between the two situations is cohousing. Cohousing offers a new approach to housing and, for many seniors, a new lease on life. Aside from a basic adherence to democratic principles, senior cohousing developments don’t tout a specific ideology beyond a desire for a more practical, social home environment. Cohousing is not a commune, nor is it an intentional community; it is simply a neighborhood that works.