An ‘Alternative’ Life Style : Group Household Helps Elderly Stay Independent
At ages 72 to 90, the residents of a roomy, Spanish-style home in the Fairfax neighborhood are unlikely candidates for a bold social experiment. Yet social pioneers they are.
The five women and three men live in a cooperative household that, in many ways, substitutes for the support of a conventional family. “If there’s an illness, people rally around to help,” says Dorothy Eletz, 83, a former radio announcer. “You don’t have to worry about being alone in a house without anyone, you don’t have to depend on relatives.”
Residents, who must be relatively healthy and earn less than about $16,000 a year, pay $395 monthly to the nonprofit Alternative Living for the Aging, which leases the house from the City of Los Angeles. In return, they have private rooms and bathrooms, five dinners a week, some house-cleaning services--and a life style free of the regimentation found in some retirement homes.
Freedom, Responsibility
“You don’t have to have breakfast and lunch at a certain time,” Eletz notes approvingly. “And you’re not without responsibility--which is good for older people.” Household members are responsible for maintaining their private rooms and taking care of most meals. They divvy up other chores, such as tidying the living room and other common areas.
The unusual household, begun more than four years ago, is one of two run by the alternative living program, which also operates a “house-sharing” service that places helpful boarders with older homeowners. According to the program’s director, Janet L. Witkin, the projects have a common philosophy: that cooperative effort among the elderly can be the key to successful independent living, especially for those who do not--or cannot--rely on relatives.
“I think it definitely is the future,” she says. “As more and more people get older and don’t look at it as a disease--but think of how they’re going to live best--many more will be trying to get together with other people.”
Special Design Features
The Fairfax home caters to the elderly not only in spirit but in design. The two-story house has modifications that young people--including most designers--never think about, but that will become more common as the general population grows older. Electrical outlets are easy to reach, at knee level. Knobs on closet doors have been replaced with handles that arthritis sufferers can grasp without pain.
Other adjustments guard against falling. Shower stalls have ledges to sit on. For those whose eyes are not what they used to be, the beige carpet on the stairwell has been colored dark brown on the first and last steps.
For all the amenities, however, it is not endless peace and good will in the pioneering household. Residents squabble occasionally over chores and current events (after Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, politics was banned as a topic at dinner) yet they exhibit a family-like forbearance toward their own.
More than a year ago, for example, the other residents released Rose Becker, 90, from her kitchen duties because of the arthritis that forces her to walk with two canes. “I’m an old lady,” says Becker with a smile. She is looking forward to the birth of her first great-great grandchild.
Story of Mutual Aid
Estelle Chean, 83, told of how another house mate recently entered her room late one evening “in a panic” over chest pains. Chean, who wears her white hair in a youthful braid, telephoned 911 for her. She recalled with amusement that “none of the others even heard the alarm when the paramedics came. I had eight burly men in my room.”
Her frightened, 80-year-old friend went to the hospital, where anxiety, not a heart attack, was blamed for her pains. She remains jittery about venturing alone on busy Fairfax Avenue, so another house mate, Sylvia Kussner, at 72 the “kid” of the household, now accompanies her to the bank and on other neighborhood errands.
“You know, it’s quite different from the usual retirement home,” said William Seligman, an 86-year-old retired labor negotiator born in Poland. “There is freedom to live the way you want to.”
