Pairings of Convenience Help Seniors Ease Problems at Home

Mary Lew was a handicapped, elderly widow with extra space in her Beverlywood home--too much space, she said. She needed help with household chores, and she ached for companionship.

Rusty Morgan was a 40-year-old divorcee, whose job-related disability left her broke and unable to work regularly.

It was a perfect match.

The two women met in July through a nonprofit Los Angeles agency called Alternative Living for the Aging, and they have shared Lew’s home since.

“I like having someone to laugh with, to talk with after dinner,” Lew said. “I have that in Rusty.”

The Los Angeles program, which has been operating for 10 years, is being duplicated in the San Fernando Valley. Jewish Family Services has been awarded a two-year, $50,000 state grant to begin a shared housing project for senior citizens that will operate from the Valley Storefront on Victory Boulevard in North Hollywood. The program, the first of its kind in the Valley, is open to all senior citizens, regardless of religious affiliation.

Ease Financial Burden

It is an attempt to help the elderly remain independent, to soothe their loneliness and ease the financial burden they often face when the cost of housing rises faster than their Social Security payments, said Dori Gradwohl, Valley Storefront’s director.

It offers an alternative to living with children or moving into an institution, Gradwohl said. Senior citizens, she said, can remain in control of their lives, eat when they are hungry and not when meals are served, keep the pets they have grown to love, live among the possessions they have collected over a lifetime.

The program, which officially started last month, has yet to make its first match. The applicants, 60 so far, are still being interviewed, and the lengthy questionnaires they have been asked to complete are being reviewed.

“One woman wants to share a place, but she wants her own kitchen,” Gradwohl said. “That’s a little unreasonable. I’m not sure we’ll be able to help her.”

Anita Capper’s application is among the stack of entries. Capper, 62, said she recently left her husband and a comfortable house in Canoga Park after 36 years of marriage. She got a part-time job as a receptionist in a dental office--the first time she has worked for someone else since 1957--and she receives half her husband’s Social Security check.

Buying Time

But her income totals less than $700 a month, not enough to pay her bills and support a place of her own. She is not looking for fellowship, just buying time until she can get back on her feet. In exchange for low rent, Capper is hoping to care for someone else’s home while they are away.

In an effort to pair the most compatible people, all applicants are queried about their personal habits--whether they awaken early or late, whether they smoke, keep pets, watch television or entertain guests frequently.

And although the shared housing staff makes home visits and screens all applications, the final decision rests with the senior citizens. They are responsible for checking personal references and choosing a partner. Sometimes they choose wrong and have to try again.

“We’re certainly not the CIA, but we endeavor to do the best job we can to ward off potential problems,” Gradwohl said. “And after the match is made, we will continue to be actively involved to make sure it’s a good marriage.”

But some matches, like some marriages, are ill-fated.

Edith Rieder, 76, has lived alone in her two-bedroom apartment since her husband died in October. She desperately wanted company, and in May, called Alternative Living in Los Angeles to inquire about a roommate.

She offered to lease a bedroom and bath in her ground-floor apartment for $200 a month, less than half her $500 monthly rent. “I made it very reasonable because I wanted somebody to be with me,” she said. “I’m afraid to live alone.”

Needed a Home

Hara Berland, 62, needed a home. She was working and living at a retirement hotel, but when her job was eliminated during a cutback, she landed at a shelter for the homeless. She called Alternative Living and was given Rieder’s phone number.

The two women met, and a match was made. But Berland said it hasn’t worked out. She described Rieder as “a very lovely lady” but said she wants a place of her own. “I am surrounded by pictures of her family,” Berland said. “I am surrounded by her things. . . . What she needs is a companion. She’s very lonely and needs company.” Berland, on the other hand, said she yearns for privacy.

But for every match with problems there are scores without them. Alternative Living has placed more than 2,800 people in shared housing situations. Fifty more make their homes in cooperative buildings, where up to 14 senior citizens live communally.

Similar programs operate in Glendale, the harbor area and Pasadena. The California Homesharing Assn. reports at least 51 such programs statewide. And nationally, there are nearly 400 programs operating in 42 states, up from about 50 in 1980, according to the National Shared Housing Resource Center in Philadelphia.

Funding Cuts

During the last year, several shared housing projects for senior citizens have fallen victim to cuts in government funding. Four programs in Pennsylvania have closed in recent months. And $500,000 for shared housing programs in California was cut from the state budget this year, which could threaten about 20 programs.

“For $500,000, we could match thousands of seniors a year,” said Janet Witkin, founder and director of Alternative Living. “That’s a lot of service for very few dollars. You could not build many buildings for $500,000.”

Meanwhile, more than 270,000 elderly people are on waiting lists for affordable housing nationwide, a number that is expected to rise as the population ages and the pool of affordable housing drops, said Deborah Cloud, a spokeswoman for the American Assn. of Homes for the Aging, a Washington-based lobby for nonprofit housing for the elderly.

“What we need are more brick and mortar dollars as well as housing and rent subsidy dollars,” Witkin said. “How many homeless old people do we want to see? I don’t think we want to see any. What a terrible thing to happen in the last years of your life.” Alternative living situations foster a feeling of family in an age when privacy and personal possessions are held in high esteem, she said.

“We’re into having our own car, our own hot tub, our own VCR, and I’m afraid we’ve created one of the loneliest peoples on the face of the earth,” Witkin said.

“We think it’s a burden to live with people. We’re not accustomed to it. We live in couples, in singles or in a nuclear family. And old people, once their spouse dies, live alone.”