4 Reasons Cohousing Has Serious Growth Potential as a Senior Housing Option

If you’re trying to understand what Boomers and older Gen Xers really want in senior housing, this piece by Adrienne Matei in the Guardian is not a bad place to start.

I would quibble with one assumption the piece makes: That there are essentially two options in today’s senior housing world: living alone and becoming lonely or moving into an institutional setting. There’s already far more available than these two unattractive extremes.

But cohousing — multigenerational or senior-specific communities where people live, interact with and care for their neighbors — has real potential to grow. The Guardian piece provides four good reasons why:

👉 Older Adults Value Their Independence and Agency.

One subject of Matei’s piece says she chose cohousing in part because “institutions ‘take away the ability to decide what your day is going to look like,’ offering scheduled activities and mealtimes that reduce individual agency.”

In cohousing, residents set their own schedules. And they do most things for themselves.

It avoids instilling what I call the “learned helplessness” that grows in some other settings.

As retired gerontologist Anne P. Glass says in the piece, “Contrary to what society may believe, older people are really quite competent.”

👉 Older Adults Want Community.

This piece makes it clear that older adults long for community and a sense of connection.

Angela Maddamma, 72, talked about the visits she received from new neighbors the day she moved into her cohousing community. She’s on a community committee and enjoys spontaneous connections with neighbors — but she can go home and “veg out” whenever she desires, too.

That’s a key aspect of community within cohousing: Having ample opportunity to connect with others, but on your own terms.

👉 A Trend From the 1960s Makes a Comeback.

The idea of living with a group of like-minded people and collaborating to support each other might sound familiar. In the 1960s and ’70s, these living arrangements were called communes.

Communes and cohousing are both centered around community, not care.

These alternative arrangements are not for everyone, and they’re difficult to scale, but they still are attractive to a significant number of older adults.

👉 A Market Gap Has Opened Up.

Thanks to increased longevity, markedly different segments make up what we used to simply call “senior citizens.”

There are many adults in their 60s, 70s and 80s who are seeking a housing lifestyle option, and others in their 80s or 90s who have care-driven needs.

It’s not surprising that the former group wants something different.

Because of this growing segment, I hope and think you’ll see cohousing grow.

Will it ever house millions? I don’t think so. But I expect to see all sorts of alternative lifestyle options develop for Boomers and Gen X. There’s certainly a desire for new options.