With three grown children and eight grandchildren, Twila Dainard and her husband are faced with the same situation as many baby boomers: a house that is too large for their needs.
But Dainard has come up with a solution, and it’s one that is growing in popularity for people of all ages: shared housing.
“This has been around a long time, but it never seems to get organized, but maybe now is the right time,” said Dainard, who lives in Lumby. “There are so many people living in isolation and everyone is talking about a housing shortage and economical living.”
The response to an online ad Dainard posted recently has been overwhelming, particularly from other women, so she knows she’s onto something.
“If you take what’s happening in the economy, the baby boomers figure they will retire and then they get a kick in the butt when they realize they can’t afford to,” said Dainard, a tile and tile inlay professional. “For me, shared housing is a way to age in place, and I don’t want to do that alone, I want to do it safely and I want to have a dog, a yard and I don’t want to cook every meal. You make it work for your situation.
“And I don’t want to be isolated because there are all of the ramifications of isolation: illness and crabbiness and instead of a mind growing, the mind gets smaller. I want someone to be around and I want to be there for someone else. I love my kids, but I don’t want to be living with them and having them take care of me.”
Laurie Moore is one of the women who answered that ad. The Vernon counsellor and mother of three grown children sees shared housing as a way to help share not only expenses but also to share connections with other people.
“I really see this in Vernon where there is an interest in sustainable living using existing houses and shared resources,” she said. “Not everyone has to own a table saw, for instance, so this is a way of people sharing what they have.
“Also, considering there are a lot of women in my age group who are finding it financially difficult and they are not in the position that they thought they would be at this time of life — maybe they’re divorced or the kids have left and she has this big house, so there are a multitude of things that are driving the interest in shared housing.”
Moore said shared housing is intentional community and said the concept ties in nicely with cohousing, which is also enjoying a renewed interest thanks to Vernon Village Cohousing, a local group she has also joined that is in the early stages of planning an intentional community of homes (details at vernonvillagecohousing.wordpress.com).
“It’s multi-generational, environmentally sustainable neighbourhoods starting at this point to learn how to live in community,” she said. “There are a lot of skills we have lost, to learn how to socialize in a home together. We should be inter-dependent, not co-dependent — we are still tribal and need companionship. But I wouldn’t live in an intentional community if it wasn’t multi-generational.”
Moore said shared housing is also a way of addressing many current social issues, such as young single parents who are unable to find an affordable place to live and raise their children.
Dainard hopes to get people on board who can help move the idea of shared housing forward, in particular someone with web site expertise or a web site where the co-housing group could have a space to advertise and get members registered.
“We’re not looking for donations or money, just citizens to come up with their own solutions,” she said. “If anyone can help with ideas, brainstorming, anything, we’d love to hear from you. We want this to work for everybody.”
For more information, please email Dainard at dawns2day@gmail.com