The Institute of Gerontology is the hub for coordinating and conducting The University of Georgia's education, research, and outreach services associated with the study of aging and older adults. Through its 30-plus member university-wide Faculty of Gerontology, the Institute collaborates with educators and researchers within Georgia, regionally, nationally, and internationally.
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The Institute of Gerontology's Associate Director, Dr. Anne P. Glass, is the leading researcher studying the emerging field of elder cohousing and other elder intentional communities.
Her interest began in 2001 when she first became involved as a consultant to the founders of ElderSpirit Community in Abingdon, Virginia, in the development of their model of later life spirituality and a “goodness of fit” questionnaire. Years later, when the community was built, she began a longitudinal study of the evolution of the community. She has now collected data annually since 2006, supported in part by funding from the Retirement Research Foundation. "I have watched this community grow with much interest," says Dr. Anne Glass, “as I believe this model has the potential to help older adults have a more satisfying experience with aging. By living close together with their peers, a sense of community can develop that encourages mutual support and communal coping with the challenges that can sometimes come with age.”
A growing number of older adults and baby boomers are rebelling against the threat of spending their final years alone, wondering who will take care of them, and perhaps ending life in a conventional nursing home. Finally, a truly new alternative living arrangement is emerging: the elder intentional community (EIC), which puts choice into the hands of the older adults themselves, allowing them to proactively choose how and where they will live their later years, as well as with whom they will grow old, in a close-knit community where neighbors look after each other. It is a radical “do-it-yourself” approach in which older adults themselves envision and implement the EICs with no administrator telling them what they can or cannot do. Thus far, at least three EICs have recently opened, and these early EICs have each adapted the cohousing model, which is designed to foster a sense of community. EICs are likely to take many different forms and attract diverse populations.
Older adults consistently indicate a preference to live in their own homes. The EIC provides the potential opportunity to carry out this wish within a community of friends, while adding a supplemental layer of support not commonly found in the average neighborhood. Typically, most caregiving responsibilities have fallen upon family members, but many older adults choose not to depend on their children for their care. An increasing number, especially among baby boomers, have no children. EIC residents can maintain a sense of independence throught a self-designed interdependence and sense of community by intentionally choosing the individuals with whom they will age.
For much more information on this topic, as well as resources, please visit our website on this topic.
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