Introduction

A familiar development among older people in the Netherlands, Denmark (BiC, 1994) and Germany (Jones, 1997), the CoHousing Community is relatively unknown in the housing sector in Britain. It is, however, a way of living that has attracted the interest of a number of small groups of individuals of all ages in this country and one which is being pioneered by a group of older women in London. This chapter sets out the main characteristics of an older persons’ CoHousing Community as it has been developed in the Netherlands, examines its feasibility in the context of housing policy in Britain and describes the efforts that are being made to introduce CoHousing in this country as an option for older people. Much of the material on the Netherlands is drawn from a study carried out for the British Housing Corporation (Brenton, 1998), and material on the Older Women's CoHousing Project in London is drawn from the author's own role in assisting it, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF).

The CoHousing Community

A CoHousing Community is a way of life which offers people privacy, independence and their own front door as members of a group who share some common space and choose to be with each other. It can be intergenerational or it can be for older people only. A bumper sticker produced by the American CoHousing Community movement reads: ‘Creating an old-fashioned neighbourhood in a new way’. The Netherlands CoHousing study (Brenton, 1998) shows that, for older people who have lived in streets or blocks where they knew none of their neighbours or where they have felt vulnerable because everyone else was out at work during the day, the CoHousing Community represents the re-creation of a small-scale familiar neighbourhood plus an extra element of group solidarity, mutuality and optional common activities.