SASKIA DE MELKER:
This is the regular dinner scene at Saettedammen, a co-housing community 45 minutes outside
Denmark’s capital of Copenhagen.
Stig Brinck, an architect, and his wife, an artist, and the teenage daughters they’ve
raised here, are responsible for tonight’s meal…for themselves and 20 neighbors in
the common house.
STIG BRINCK:
We eat together four times a week, for those who want to participate.
SASKIA DE MELKER:
What’s it like cooking for 25 people?
How do you do that?
STIG BRINCK:
First of all, we have a kitchen that’s capable for it.
So we have the tools to do it.
That’s very important.
SASKIA DE MELKER:
Communal meals are a staple at Saettedammen, where 71 people live in 28 houses clustered
around shared recreational and outdoor spaces — walkways, gardens, and parking — and
a common house.
Residents are expected to clean shared areas and take turns tending the grounds.
Everyone shares resources like laundry facilities, outdoor tools, and play equipment.
Small groups of families rotate leading monthly community meetings.
STIG BRINCK:
You live in kind of a small, small village.
You know everybody around you, and you share as much as possible.
So you are very close neighbors, and you are kind of depending on each other, but you’re
not obligated to any strict rules.
SASKIA DE MELKER:
The Saettedammen community is made up of a range of singles, couples, retirees, and families
with children.
Every family has privacy in a home with its own bedrooms, baths, and kitchen.
The land is cooperatively owned, but residents own their homes — a structure similar to
a condominium association in the U-S.
The cost of homes here is comparable to other homes in the area, but an average sized household
pays about $3,500 dollars a year for communal resources.
Saettedammen started 46 years ago and is recognized as the first cohousing community in the world.
Britta Bjerre and her husband, Arne, were among the first families to move in.
BRITTA BJERRE:
We didn’t want our family to spend our lives in an insular way in a house on a suburban
street somewhere.
And one day we saw a newspaper ad saying that some people had their eyes on a plot of land,
and they were looking for twenty-five to thirty families to buy it and build houses as well
as a communal house.
SASKIA DE MELKER:
Lisa Berkman, a professor of public policy and epidemiology at Harvard University says
that cohousing harkens back to the kinds of communities that used to naturally dominate
our societies.
LISA BERKMAN:
You know, when you think about the apartment buildings that were designed at the turn of
the century, they were designed as two-family houses or three-family houses, each on a floor.
And those enabled multi-generation households to live together and still have their own
housing.
SASKIA DE MELKER:
Berkman says that cohousing can reduce social isolation and the detrimental health effects
associated with it.
LISA BERKMAN:
Social isolation relates to the number of ties and the quality of relationships that
you have: religious ties, community ties, work ties.
People who are very isolated, who are disconnected, have a mortality rate that’s about three
times as high That is, they’re about three times as likely to die over maybe a decade,
as people who have many, many more ties.
SASKIA DE MELKER:
70-year-old Jytte Helle has lived in Saettedammen for 30 years.
JYTTE HELLE:
It’s important to me to be with a mixed group, not only with other older people, because
then we would just talk about our diseases and aches and pains.
Older people can’t give the same energy as younger people can.
STIG BRINCK:
So having neighbors and knowing their kids, I think that’s // just like it’s a benefit
of having a big family.
SASKIA DE MELKER:
Is this replacing the idea of the extended family?
STIG BRINCK:
Indeed it is.
I see it very much as the extended family.
ELLA POULSEN:
It’s like nice to have a friend nearby always that you can talk to.
SASKIA DE MELKER:
14-year old Ella Poulsen has lived in Saettedammen her whole life.
ELLA POULSEN:
It’s kind of like everyone’s a parent, and everybody will take care of the kid if
there’s something wrong and the parents aren’t there.
I think it’s just very safe.
SASKIA DE MELKER:
It’s estimated that at least 1 percent of the Danish population lives in cohousing arrangements.
In the United States, the Cohousing Association of America estimates there are about 150 communities.
Rocky Hill Cohousing in Northampton, Massachusetts was established 12 years ago.
It has 28 households with residents ranging from age 2 to 80.
With a similar financial model to Saettedammen, Rocky Hill has a variety of common spaces,
resources, activities, and shared chores.
CAROL RINEHART:
I love knowing that somebody’s out there plowing the path on a snowy morning.
That’s lovely, knowing that there are mixed ages of people who can help with keeping the
place up, and we have our jobs divided.
SASKIA DE MELKER:
Carol Rinehart is 72-years-old and just retired from her job as a hospice coordinator.
She’s lived at Rocky Hill since its formation.
CAROL RINEHART:
You don’t get up some day in the morning and say, “You know, I think this is the
day I’m going to have a community.”
You know, you build a community.
SASKIA DE MELKER:
The number of Americans 65 and older is expected to nearly double by 2050.
According to the Pew Research Center, 61 percent say they would prefer to stay in their homes
even when they can no longer take care of themselves.That’s compared to 17 percent
who would opt for an assisted living facility.
Just 8 percent would prefer to move in with a family member.
Harvard Professor Lisa Berkman says cohousing allows people to age in their homes.
LISA BERKMAN:
With the aging of the population and the increasing frailty that people will experience as they
age, at some point everybody needs a little help.
Americans are particularly vulnerable to social isolation in part because we value independence
so much, and because we’re so mobile.
And we live in a very, very big country.
SASKIA DE MELKER:
Berkman says that while older Americans are especially vulnerable to social isolation,
young families often struggle to maintain social networks as they juggle work and family.
College professor Gary Felder lives at the Rocky Hill cohousing community with his wife
and their two young children.
He says their social life is built in, unlike other families who don’t live in a cohousing
arrangement.
GARY FELDER:
You’ve got to arrange babysitting, you need to figure out the timing, and then you’ve
got to rush back and so on.
And that was just never a big deal for us.
We would put our kids down, we would throw in a baby monitor and we would go spend an
evening with our friends.
Every week.
SASKIA DE MELKER:
Cause you’re right next door, to the common house?
GARY FELDER:
Yeah, absolutely.
And if one of our kids woke up, two minutes later we were in the bedroom.
SASKIA DE MELKER:
Felder admits that this lifestyle isn’t for everyone, and about one family a year
decides to leave.
GARY FELDER:
The biggest challenge is that you’re making decisions with 27 other households.
That is the definition of hell for some people.
SASKIA DE MELKER:
But Felder says that for his family the benefits they get from an intergenerational community
outweigh the difficulties.
GARY FELDER:
The other thing which our kids get, which is even more rare in this society, is they
have regular interactions with elders, with seniors.
They’re very aware of the whole process of people getting older and retiring and having
physical problems and dying.
SASKIA DE MELKER:
Rocky Hill residents are coming up with new guidelines to help aging community members,
including ride sharing and connecting residents with financial and medical services.
CAROL RINEHART:
Could we even make a space here in the common house for somebody who lives and is a licensed
practical nurse and taking care of several different families who may be in that area
of need.
SASKIA DE MELKER:
At the Saettedammen community in Denmark, maintaining an intergenerational community
is getting harder.
More than half of the residents are now over 65.
The community is encouraging younger families to move in when homes become available.
Many long time residents, like Jytte Helle, don’t want to leave their social support
network.
JYTTE HELLE:
We’ve been a part of creating this, and want to feel the benefits that come with getting
old in a cohousing community like this.
SASKIA DE MELKER:
Do you think there is something about this community, does it keep you younger?
JYTTE HELLE:
Yes.
Definitely.
I’m convinced that If I lived exclusively with elderly people, I would degenerate.
So the fact that I’m living with younger people is a gift on a daily basis.