A Home Within a Home : * Granny flats bring aging parents close to adult children, but not too close for comfort.
Deborah and Richard Lind of Woodland Hills were worried about Richard’s aging parents. Isabelle Lind, 82, was so frail she could barely pull herself out of a chair, and Captain Lind, 83, had trouble providing the care and assistance she needed. The older couple lived hundreds of miles away in a Mesa, Ariz., mobile home.
“We knew they needed to be closer to us,” said Deborah, an interior designer, “but they didn’t want to give up their independence and lifestyle.”
Retirement communities typically require residents to be ambulatory--which Richard’s mother was not--and a nursing home was out of the question. The best option, the Linds decided, was to build a separate apartment for the senior citizens within the younger couple’s home.
The 700-square-foot addition, designed by Deborah, includes two bedrooms, bathroom, living room, wet bar sink, mini-dishwasher and under-counter refrigerator. Extra-wide hallways and doors accommodate a wheelchair or walker, and firm, low-pile carpeting provides a stable surface. Handrails and grab bars were installed throughout the unit, and overhead recessed lights eliminate the need for lamps and dangling cords.
The unit has a separate entrance and pathway to the street, so guests of the seniors--as well as the Meals on Wheels driver who delivers their lunch--don’t have to traipse through Deborah and Richard’s home.
“If my in-laws want privacy, they lock their door,” Deborah Lind said. “If they have a problem, I am as close as the doorway between their unit and my kitchen.”
The entire addition, which took about four months to design and construct, cost about $55,000. That sounds like a lot of money, Deborah says--until you compare it to living in a nursing home, which can run $5,000 a month or more. The elder Linds are delighted with their new quarters.
“It’s fantastic,” Captain Lind said. “It is very livable and efficient. And of course being with my family--and their cats and dogs--is worth a lot.”
“We love it,” Isabelle Lind added. “It’s plenty big for the two of us. And I love cats, so I just enjoy tremendously having these animals here.”
According to Jon Pynos, assistant professor at USC’s Andrus Gerontology Center, seniors throughout Los Angeles have difficulty finding adequate housing. While the problem is especially acute for those requiring assistance with daily activities and those living on small fixed incomes, “even middle-income seniors have problems if their environment no longer meets their needs,” he said. “Many seniors living alone cannot maintain their home; they are lonely; they don’t feel safe living by themselves.”
Realizing that her family’s living arrangement could solve problems for many adult children and their parents, Deborah Lind has become a senior housing advocate. She is a member of the Los Angeles Council on Aging, serves as the council’s liaison to the Department of Housing and is active with the National Assn. of Homebuilders’ Senior Housing Council.
A “granny flat” is one solution for elders who want to live near--but not exactly with--family members, Lind said. Also called “second units,” granny flats of up to 640 square feet may be either attached to or detached from the main house and include a living room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. The cost to build one from the ground up is about $55 per square foot.
However, local zoning ordinances severely restrict granny-flat construction. In Los Angeles, for example, the house must be on a minimum 7,500-square-foot lot, units may not be constructed in a hillside area, and additional off-street parking may be required.
Perhaps most daunting is the hefty $2,500 to $5,000 application fee, which is non-refundable--even if the permit to build the unit is denied. In fact, according to Deborah Lind, so much red tape is involved that the city has granted only four granny flat permits since 1984.
Some homeowners get around such zoning hassles by simply converting a few extra rooms into separate living quarters for family members. Kitchens and built-in stoves are prohibited in such “accessory” apartments, but a wet bar, including a sink and refrigerator, is allowed.
Seniors in the northeastern United States have a third choice, not yet available in Southern California. ECHO units (the acronym stands for “elder cottage housing opportunity”) are modular, portable, stand-alone homes that can be assembled in the back yard of a single-family home in just three days.
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The homes are rented to seniors as long as necessary, then dismantled and transported to another location for someone else’s use.
Deborah Lind hopes to persuade city officials to purchase ECHO units, which cost $20,000 to $35,000 apiece, to rent to Los Angeles seniors.
“These solutions are not utilized as much as they could be,” Deborah Lind said. “More and more friends of ours are in the same boat we were in. Their parents need a little assistance and proximity to their adult children, but they don’t need nursing care. People don’t know options exist that enable them to be there to help their parents while still maintaining privacy and independence for both generations.”
WHERE TO GO
What: Information on solutions to senior housing.
Write: National Eldercare Institute on Housing and Supportive Services at USC Andrus Gerontology Center, Los Angeles, CA 90089.
