Is the Future Going Down the Drain? Baby Boomers Going Bust

By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet. Posted March 6, 2009.

Some of my friends and I shared a communal house in the 70s. We first came up with this idea [of doing it again] when we were talking about the possibility of having to live in assisted living or nursing homes, and we decided it would be far better to all live together in a big house with friends we knew and loved and hire a nurse and a cook. One of my friends owns a construction firm and he says he can put an elevator in any home for less than $100,000. We have looked at several homes. One was a beautiful house that backed onto a huge city park and had a pool decks all around and could easily be converted into four private residences. It was $600,000, which would only be $150,000 per unit. Much less than the $4,000 a month to have half of a dingy room in a nursing home that smells like urine.

For those who can't afford to buy a comfortable retirement home with friends, there is a proliferating number of larger, shared-income communities with low financial thresholds. Known as “Intentional Communities” these small village-like settlements allow like-minded retirees to pool their economic resources and support each other during their “second journey.” While historically there has been little correlation between economic downturns and growth in America's commune movement—the greatest spike occurred during the boom decade between 1965 and 1975—the current economic downturn is dovetailing with a rise in the number of such communities around the country.

“We are in a period of elevated interest in intentional communities,” says Laird Schaub, executive director of the Fellowship for Intentional Communities. “There is no statistically meaningful data since the crisis began, but the after a lull in the 80s and 90s, the last decade has seen growing numbers of people in their 50s interested in this way of life.”

Tony Sirna, a veteran of communes and the Fellowship's web manager, says that while many people are currently drawn to income-sharing communities because of financial straights, he suspects many will stay on because of the social and cultural benefits of living with others and sharing resources.

“As a generation, boomers have a unique relationship to the idea of Community,” says Sirna. “Partly because of the Counterculture, many retirees are choosing to create non-corporate senior cohousing, as opposed to traditional senior communities in which they feel institutionalized.” Sirna says many shared-income communities are now at maximum capacity for the first time in decades, with waiting lists full of retirees eager to live the shared, cooperative life. 

If the deepening economic crisis does lead the boomers back to Countercultural values, a generation will have come full circle. Whether they end up living in a group house, a shared apartment, or a full-on hippie-style commune, studies show that they will live longer and more fulfilling later lives. “The results here are truly amazing,” says Kirby Dunn, pointing to studies that gauge the effects of shared housing. “Across all programs and age-brackets, people say they feel safer, are less lonely, happier, and sleep better. They also call their family less often for help.”

This last item is of particular interest to the boomers' kids. They may not have made it to the mortgage stage of the game before the crisis hit, but that doesn't mean they don't have problems of their own.

See more stories tagged with: retirement, savings, baby boomers, recession, pensions

Alexander Zaitchik is a freelance journalist in Brooklyn. Contact him at zaitchik.com.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace! Sign up now »