The Senior Citizen Boom : Lifestyles: A co-op housing project allows senior citizens to live independently together in a supportive environment.
If Mim Broderick leaves her second-floor apartment open while she prunes the garden, she knows the neighbors will keep an eye on her place.
Broderick, 71, lives in a cooperative housing project in North Hollywood that is an example of how senior citizens can live together, yet independently, in their own apartments.
“A lot of helpless widows live here because the men die off and we suddenly have to take care of ourselves,” said Broderick, who recently saved her neighbor a $50 plumbing bill by shoving a broomstick down a garbage disposal to fix a clog. “We have to work together.”
The Colfax Ardmore Cooperative Estates didn’t start out as a senior complex when it was built in 1961. People bought units for as little as $900. Some of the 44 units now go for $80,000. Each tenant pays $150 to $250 monthly for maintenance, depending on the size of the apartment. The couples moved in and grew old together. Now, about 75% are seniors.
Government officials who work with the elderly say co-ops like this will replace expensive and restrictive nursing homes as the senior population increases in the Valley.
“When we moved here, we didn’t think we’d be here so long,” said Don Hansman, who moved in 28 years ago with his wife, Marjorie. The couple help take care of the pool with Robert Marnell, 73, a neighbor who recently suffered a stroke but is out in the pool every day.
“By the year 2002, we’ll own it, if we live that long,” Marjorie said.
Neighbors in the co-op check in on each other, exchange coupons, trade magazines, post wedding anniversaries on a bulletin board and share responsibilities for taking care of the grounds.
It was 89-year-old Lyle Cain’s idea to have big red wrenches chained next to each gas main for emergency shut-offs after an earthquake. Cain, a retired Universal Studios sound engineer, was one of the first tenants to move into the complex in 1961. He doesn’t swim, he doesn’t like the co-op barbecues, and like most of his neighbors, he refuses to go to the North Hollywood senior citizen center less than a mile away.
“I don’t like to associate with people who are always complaining about aches and pains at those centers,” said Cain, who has a toy train hobby to keep himself active. “Around here, we all know each other, and we care about each other, but we live our own lives.”
Although some young couples live in the complex, children are discouraged, and pets are forbidden.
Safety is what Ben and Eve Weiner wanted when they moved from their Fairfax-area apartment three years ago. Also, the co-op was closer to their relatives.
“This is the best move we’ve ever made,” Eve Weiner said. Her husband putters around the grounds, changing light bulbs, cleaning driveways, checking sprinklers, painting fences and sweeping where needed. He has become the volunteer handyman of the complex.
“I do whatever I can,” Ben Weiner said. “Today I fixed the shower of a nice widow. A living situation like this is good, because it forces us to get out and not be reclusive. We all own a part of it.”
The Weiners are content lounging on the porch as their neighbors drop by and visit. Some don’t ever drop by, however.
“Some older people are just plain lonely and grumpy,” Ben Weiner said. “Boy, if I get that nasty, I think I’d shoot myself.”
“If you get that nasty, I’ll be the one who shoots you,” his wife said, smiling.
Broderick, the self-appointed gardener of the co-op, shows neighbors how to care for the flowers she plants throughout the complex. They, in turn, will give her a ride somewhere if she needs one. Wearing a T-shirt reading, “Learning and Sex Until Rigor Mortis,” Broderick spends her time reading, taking pottery classes and attending meetings of the Gray Panthers, a senior citizen activist group.
“It’s nice to see what I plant flourish,” Broderick says. “I show folks around here how to weed the petunias, and some of them are literally learning how to stop and smell the roses.”
