Communes spring up as alternative to conventional retirement homes
LONDON: Dozens of communal housing schemes for older people are in the pipeline offering an alternative to traditional retirement homes.
Avoiding expensive care home fees, the projects are designed to allow residents to live independently while being part of a community.
New Ground in High Barnet was the first co-housing scheme to offer accommodation for older women.
Unlike sheltered housing, there is no on-site care. Instead, the women look out for each other, car-pooling to hospital appointments, cooking regular meals together and sharing hobbies.
New Ground was set up by the Older Women’s Co-Housing group, whose members are aged between 50 and 89.
Co-founder Maria Brenton, 73, said: “When anyone asks me what co-housing is, I say at the very simplest it’s housing with built-in social connections. You each have your own private household. There are certain things you share in common. You take decisions together, you’re in control of the whole thing.”
In an interview, she added: “It offers answers to so many of the problems of old age. It’s predominantly women in old age who live alone and if you do get lonely and isolated then there are all sorts of health problems that ensue from that. For older people, I would argue that it gives them a sort of conviviality.”
Resident Jude Tisdall said: “I was in my mid-sixties and you start thinking about how you want to live in the future. I wanted to be part of a community. I wanted to live with like-minded people and I wanted to have responsibility for the way I was going to live.”
New Ground is made up of 25 flats. It has a buildings team, a finance team and a membership group who make decisions together based on consensus. It opened two years ago and has paved the way for similar schemes.
Another resident, Angela Ratcliffe, 84, said: “I think one of the most attractive things about this place is you can be in your own flat, looking out on a lovely garden, seeing other people moving around and you don’t have to be involved with them if you don’t want to, if you do, they’re there.”
Levent Kerimol, director at Community-Led Housing London, said it has 60 to 70 community-led housing groups or schemes in the capital.
