ALL IN THE FAMILY : Multi-Generation Living Can Offer Economic, Personal Benefits

Philip Giroux has fond memories of the grandmother who lived with his family when he was a boy.

“She was always there for me and I bonded with her, even more than with my own mother,” said Giroux, a landscape architect who lives in West Los Angeles. “Now our children benefit from the closeness . . . of two grandparents.”

Giroux, his wife, Kathy, and their children, Todd and Samantha, have lived with Kathy’s parents, the Rev. Jerry and Helen Shiroishi, for the past 10 years.

And they wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Our grandparents are like having a second set of parents,” said 16-year-old Todd. “My grandfather is 77. He’s so active and always in a good humor.”

“They know how to keep a secret,” confided 13-year-old Samantha. “When I’m sick and my Mom’s working, my Gram makes me soup and toast, and when we need money, we can borrow from them. My friends think they’re funny and cute and nice.”

Like the Girouxs, more and more families are living in extended family arrangements, according to the latest census findings.

“Whether by choice or necessity, multi-generational households have tripled in the past two decades,” said Steve Rawlings, a family demographer with the U.S. Census Bureau.

“The number of householders living with one or more children and grandchildren in 1990 was about 1.4 million, or 2% of all family households; in 1970 there were 447,000.” The changing picture, Rawlings added, is attributable to a growing number of single-parent situations, a new wave of immigrants and a tighter economy.

For the Shiroishis and Girouxs, the joining of two households was both an economic decision and an arrangement that made good sense.

The Shiroishis had purchased the family home in West Los Angeles in the 1940s and raised two children there. After their daughter married Philip Giroux, the young couple rented for two years, then moved in with her parents.

“We were expecting our second child. I was just getting started in my own business and we couldn’t afford to buy a home,” said Philip Giroux. “That’s when we decided to ask my in-laws if we could build our own quarters as an addition to their home.”

“The arrangement seemed like a good idea to us,” said grandmother Shiroishi. “We all got along really well, and my husband and I were rarely home, traveling a good deal on church business.” Her husband is a minister of the Japanese Gedatsu Church of America.

Giroux redesigned the Shiroishis two-bedroom, one-bath home by adding a second story, increasing the size of the structure from 1,200 to 2,800 square feet. It now has six bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths and a beautifully landscaped yard.

The present arrangement provides the Shiroishis with a two-bedroom suite and bath on the ground floor and upstairs bedrooms for the Girouxs and their children. Common areas are shared by the entire family.

“For a year during construction, we lived in very tight quarters and everyone had to learn to make adjustments,” the grandmother recalled. “At first I was running myself ragged trying to pick up after two very active kids but I finally got over that.”

“We have fun with our grandchildren, and they’re always in and out of our rooms,” added grandfather Shiroishi. “My grandson is 16, and just got his driver’s license. Now he says to me: ‘Gee,’ . . . that’s short for grandfather in Japanese . . . ‘are you using the car tonight’ and I let him borrow it. All this activity keeps me alert.”

The multi-generational lifestyle is common and apparently on the rise among Latinos, European and Asian immigrants and among blacks, said Monica Hampton, regional director for Lutheran Family emergency services.

“These groups have traditionally relied on reciprocal help among family members and across generations,” she said. “And it’s a positive factor in our society that family members are willing to live together. If they were not, we would be looking at a much greater homeless population.”

Steve Smiley, manager of the Los Angeles and Ventura division of the Meyers Group, which tracks buyer profiles for new home developers, observed that when several generations of a family live together, it is not always a matter of choice.

“It is not a lifestyle that applies to the average American family, but for a great many of them, struggling because of a lingering recession, there is little choice but to move into larger homes and to share accommodations with family or friends,” Smiley said.

“We also find a large number of multi-generational households among the many Asian and Hispanic families which have been settling in the east San Gabriel Valley, for whom the concept of extended family living under one roof is an accepted cultural tradition,” he added.

Steve Boggs, director of building operations for Standard Pacific in the Ventura area, also has seen many changes in the housing market in the past year and reports good sales with homes that have a higher room count.

“Often, by pooling financial resources with their parents, a younger generation that would otherwise not be able to afford a larger home, gets to raise their children in more spacious surroundings and older members of the family get a chance to leave their homes to travel. In tighter economic situations, where both parents are employed, the older generation helps to care for the grandchildren.

“In a multi-generational situation it seems that family members get the best of both worlds.” he said.

Real estate agents on the Westside and some in the Los Feliz area also report an increase in requests for larger homes in the resale market. Mimo Farzam, an agent with RE-MAX Estate Properties in Beverly Hills, reported a number of new arrivals seeking properties suitable for multi-generational living.

“My experience with immigrant families is that, traditionally, when they first arrive, family members and relatives tend to live together. After family members begin making money, they tend to live in separate households but still in proximity to other family members, usually within blocks. . . . Many families buy a duplex or fourplex or add a wing to an existing house to accommodate an extended family.

“In Persian families like mine, the tradition is for a man who marries to bring his wife to live in his family’s home. To live with his wife’s family would label him as weak and unable to support his wife.”

Noel Toy, a veteran broker for Castagna Realty in the Los Feliz area, said requests for multi-generational housing are far more prevalent now than during the past 20 years that she’s been selling properties.

Toy finds that extended families want to live close together but prefer to live in separate units.

“What they look for are duplexes or four-unit buildings, and often family members share the costs for purchasing a property. Even on two incomes, it’s hard for young couples to make high mortgage payments and property taxes, in addition to having to come up with a suitable down payment.”

Jessie Mae Fay, who recently celebrated her 90th birthday, can’t remember ever having lived in a home she did not share with other members of her family or when she did not experience multi-generational dependency and bonding.

For the past 28 years she has occupied one of two second-floor units of a fourplex in Los Angeles. It is owned by her son, William Fay, who purchased it as an investment in 1964.

Jessie Fay shares the two-bedroom apartment with a niece, Katheryn Farris.

“I brought my mother out from Texas to live with me in the late ‘50s, before I was married,” Fay said. “Even then rentals were steadily increasing and I worried that in the future my mother might not be able to afford to continue to live in a nice and safe neighborhood.

“That’s when I decided to buy this building so that my mother and other family members would always have a place to live for a decent rent.”

The unit across the hall from Jessie Fay is occupied by her youngest sister, Katheryn Price, who currently shares it with her granddaughter, Lesli, the child of her daughter, Katheryn Farris. “Perhaps the secret of why we get along is because we each have our separate space, but we’re close together in the same building and watching out for one another.

“It’s just natural for us to help with whatever needs to be done,” Price said.

“Our mother had 17 children. Jessie was the oldest and I was the youngest, so when I was ready for school, my mother sent me to live with Jessie. Then when I got older and Jesse had to work, I took care of her son Bill. Later when I went to work, she took care of my two daughters.”

For a few years Jessie’s grandson, William Girard Fay, also lived in a downstairs unit while going to college, as did other members of the family. “The only one who hasn’t lived in this building is my son Bill. He lives in Pasadena, where his wife’s family has lived for generations. But he watches over all of us,” said the nonagenarian. “I’m so very lucky.”

Chinese-Americans may also choose to live close to their families but not under the same roof, said Lucy Cheng, a UCLA specialist in Asian studies. “While young Asians are still linked to the Chinese tradition of filial piety, they favor the ease of movement that independent living affords.

“Those doing well financially may join with others to purchase an apartment house where their respective parents can have their own units but also share common areas and enjoy the companionship of their peers,” Cheng said.

Michael Robinson, a UCLA sociologist and specialist on the Asian family structure, said the Confucian ideal of four or five generations living in harmony under one roof, “was more practicable amongst the elite families of a century or two ago.

“In the 20th Century it has been more difficult to sustain the Asian multi-generational concept, the stronger patriarchal authority and attending responsibilities.

“When you find extended families living together it is either happening under an ideal set of circumstances, with parents still voicing authority, children acquiescing and accepting the responsibility and obligation in that kind of solidarity. Or, in the case of immigrant families, it gives them a chance to invest together, build a business and give everyone a better chance to prosper.”

For Korean immigrants, the expectations on how much space is required to accommodate larger families are much lower than in our country, Robinson said. Crowded conditions under which families lived together before 1965 and the economic boom in Korea, are almost unimaginable. But that is already changing as they see how others live.

Korean-born Hak Sik Son, a Santa Monica-based architect, described the typical layout of a traditional Korean home designed for multi-generational living--a concept that continues to flourish in a modified way among Korean families who have migrated to the United States.

“In the traditional Korean home the main body of the building always has a southern orientation. The entry, always lower than the house itself, is a transitional level and defines the family abode, giving the house some height and importance, like a temple,” Son explained. “The entry is where the shoes are left upon entering the house, a carry-over from earlier days when roads were dirt-paved.

“Most rooms in a Korean home are multifunctional . . . and the only privacy, provided by sliding shoji screens and plaster partitions, is visual. The grandparents sleep in the inner room, which also serves as a dining room at mealtime; there is another main room where the parents sleep, shared by everyone and a room for the children. But because of the thin partitions there is very little audio privacy. This teaches one to be considerate of others.”

Ken Lee, a Korean merchant who owns a chain of liquor and grocery stores in Los Angeles, commissioned Son to redesign his 2,400-square-foot Hancock Park home and to include certain elements of Korean architecture.

The occupants of the modernized home, now totaling 4,000 square feet, include Lee, his wife, Linda, their children, Jasmine, 13, and Andrew, 8, and the children’s maternal grandparents, Kim Sook Kwon and Kim Dong Soon, both 78.

“New construction, totaling 1,600 square feet, added a separate apartment over the garage for the grandparents, a second floor with a master bedroom suite for the parents, an enlarged kitchen and small entry with its shoe closet, in keeping with the Asian tradition.” Son said.

When the grandparents arrived recently from Korea to join the family, the size of the new home overwhelmed them. “They felt isolated in private quarters for them over the garage, so their wishes to be closer to the family were respected,” Son said.

“My parents now share a bedroom with our son Andrew and that suits him just fine,” added Linda Lee. “He likes having grandparents who tuck him in at night and help him get up in the morning so he won’t be late for school. They also provide company for the children and help with the house and the garden.”

Jasmine, an accomplished gymnast, likes having her own room where she can play records without bothering anyone. “But I feel much safer knowing my grandparents are here when I come home from school,” said the teen-ager, whose parents both work in the family business.