Not Home Alone

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Proponents of elder cohousing see it as an affordable and creative alternative to assisted living and nursing homes. Sixteen of ElderSpirit's 29 units are federally subsidized rentals that cost from $300 to $350 a month for a one-bedroom and $484 a month for two bedrooms. The remaining 13 homes have sold for $90,000 to $100,000 for a one-bedroom and $113,200 for two. All residents chip in $150 a month for expenses, including maintenance and, when the common-house kitchen is completed, communal meals available to all. And everyone makes a commitment to help one another as they grow older.

Prospective elder-cohousing residents, attracted by newspaper ads or word of mouth, meet with a developer, architect, banks and other financing agencies before ground is broken to come up with a project to fit the personality of the group. They get to know one another through regular meetings as the project develops. Impatient or authoritarian types tend to drop out because it takes about two years to complete a project and all decisions and rules for the community are by consensus. New members can jump in at any time, even after the project is built, but must pledge to abide by the agreed-upon bylaws.

"People 55 and older are at the beginning of a revolution to reinvent the kind of housing they want to live in for the rest of their lives," says Zev Paiss, 48, a co-founder of the Elder Cohousing Network in Boulder, Colo. "There have been no models before about how to grow old and stay in your home but be surrounded by a group of neighbors with a connection. This is something people are craving." Interest in the elder-cohousing movement is spreading. Charles Durrett, who brought the housing concept to the U.S. and is the author of Senior Cohousing: A Community Approach to Independent Living, says he receives calls daily inquiring about the idea. Durrett and his wife Kathryn McCamant are the architects of Silver Sage and are also designing projects in the Sierra foothills of Grass Valley, Calif., and Arvada, Colo. ElderSpirit, meanwhile, is helping groups in Florida, North Carolina, Kansas and Ohio start other elder-cohousing developments with a spiritual component.

Ackroyd and her shoulder notwithstanding, current elder-cohousing residents tend to be healthy, active and independent, so no one is sure how the concept will work when increasing numbers of residents become frail and in need of assistance. Advocates say that when residents get sick, they will pay for and arrange their own care but that the communal-living arrangement may offer an advantage since infirm members could share the expense of hiring a health-care provider to tend to several of them. And, of course, members will continue to enjoy the support and physical presence of people who have become part of their lives. "I expect to live and die in the community I took part in creating," says Catherine Rumschlag, 80, one of the former nuns who helped found ElderSpirit. "We'll help each other. I don't want to go to a nursing home with strangers."