Happy International Day of Older Persons!

Community Building for Old Age: Breaking New Ground The UK’s first senior cohousing community, High Barnet

Today is International Day of Older Persons, an international awareness day hosted by the United Nations. It’s a key opportunity to celebrate the lives of older adults, while highlighting both the opportunities and the challenges that ageing presents.

This year’s theme is “Resilience of Older Persons in a Changing World”.

That’s why we are delighted to draw attention to a guest blog written by Maria Brenton, Senior Cohousing Ambassador at UK Cohousing, who discusses the greater resilience and adaptability at the new Ground Cohousing Community, High Barnet.

You can read ‘New Ground’ Cohousing Community, High Barnet: resilience and adaptability, here.

High Barnet is the UK’s first senior cohousing community. This Housing LIN case study (No. 139) offers a case study on the Older Women’s Cohousing (OWCH) group’s experience in active community-building. Building on the Housing LIN’s series of publications around ‘people powered change’, it describes the initiative conceived and driven by a group of older women who, understanding that living alone as they grew old could leave them vulnerable, looked to each other to develop and share their social capital.

To this end, they have built a cohousing community based on shared responsibility and mutual support.

To show support, we encourage you to draw attention to and challenge negative stereotypes and misconceptions about older persons and ageing. Tag us on Twitter (opens new window)!