Co-housing is a win-win situation with many co-benefits. As the baby boomers age, and lose their partners, co-housing is a viable alternative to retirement homes and nursing homes. As Anil Gawande points out in his thoughtful book, Being Mortal, “our most cruel failure is how we treat the sick and the aged. . .the failure to recognize that they have priorities beyond merely being safe and living longer; that the chance to shape one’s story is essential to sustaining meaning in life; that we have the opportunity to refashion our institutions, our culture, and our conversations in ways that transform the possibilities for the last chapters of everyone’s life.”
What are some of these benefits? Besides increasing individual agency through belonging to a new intentional community, it decreases loneliness and augments connection at a stage in your life when your social networks may be shrinking. So besides the social benefits, there are many associated health benefits. Co-housing is different from cooperative housing in that there is shared common space and yet you have your own home. And there could be economic co-benefits as well, both individually but as well for communities if under used buildings are re-purposed for co-housing.
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