Title: OWCH – THE OLDER WOMEN’S COHOUSING PROJECT

Author: Maria Brenton

Date: 21 August 2001

Housing for Women’s focus on women’s housing needs has taken a new perspective in partnership with a group of older women. The Older Women’s CoHousing group represents women who are all housed separately at present but want to be rehoused together. Aged from their early fifties to seventies, they want to share activities and offer each other support as they get older. Housing for Women is actively seeking a site for them in London.

Why a new perspective?

What is new about this project is the role the group itself is taking and will continue to take once it is resident in its own housing complex. It has formed in advance of finding somewhere to live and OWCH members will have cemented a firm sense of community and clear ideas of how they want to run their housing scheme by the time they move in. They will run it themselves according to their own philosophy and rules and will help new members who arrive at a later stage to participate fully in the life of the group. These will be women over 50 from any background or culture who are interested in and supportive of the communal life of the group.

How did it start and what is CoHousing?

OWCH was set up in 1998 by a group of eight women inspired by a ‘living group’ model enjoyed by many older people in the Netherlands.. The ‘living group’ or Cohousing Community model has been developed by older people in the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and elsewhere. Essentially, CoHousing is a way of living as a group, where you can enjoy all the companionship, activities and support that a group can offer, while still preserving your own private space and independence. It’s like setting up your own mini-neighbourhood with people you know who are signed up to a common understanding and a shared responsibility for each other. This doesn’t mean you live in each other’s pockets but it does mean you have friendly, helpful neighbours to hand. If you have already such a thing in London as helpful neighbours, then you know how important it is – particularly if you live alone.

Who else is involved?

OWCH members have the help of Maria Brenton, a part-time consultant funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation – a research body with Quaker origins which supports innovative approaches to social need. As the first project of its kind for older people in Britain, OWCH has the status of a pilot project. Its members are keen to demonstrate that CoHousing for older people is a possibility in this country. Their experience will be written up as a guide for groups of older people interested in doing the same thing. Housing for Women, officially a partner of the OWCH group since June 1999, has supported and encouraged progress. It also manages a research study, funded by the Housing Corporation, into the legal and financial feasibility of CoHousing for older people. The Housing Corporation is very interested in the possibilities offered by the concept for widening out choices for older people and helping them stay in charge of their own lives. They are also keen on testing out the potential of a mixed tenure (ownership and rental) housing scheme.

The CoHousing Network

OWCH is part of a broad CoHousing network in Britain. There are very few actual CoHousing Communities here and these are all family based. There are many groups around the country who are meeting and planning in the same way as OWCH – including a small older women’s group in South Wales and an embryonic group of older women and men in Bristol. The Network has its own website on www.cohousing.co.uk/ and the OWCH group can be found on this site.

What does the OWCH group do?

OWCH has been meeting monthly since 1998 and has grown in size as more women heard of the project. Twenty or so OWCH members meet for a day each month in North London. Their usual pattern is to have a business meeting and a workshop facilitated by one of their number and a very sociable lunch in between, where everyone brings food to share. The group organises a residential weekend twice a year for members to get to know each other better.

The women aim to share out responsibilities and tasks and for everyone to take some part in the process of planning their future living arrangements. Between the monthly full meetings, various task groups will be meeting in each other’s homes to take forward some aspect of the work and members will also be meeting each other socially here and there.

The communications group. There is quite a lot of work to be done. Recruitment to the group and contact with new women is the job of the communications group, who have also produced an information leaflet setting out the aims of the group.

The leaflet describes their goal as:

‘A community of women aged 50 and over in which their skills and talents are valued, shared and developed.

A living group where health and well-being are enhanced through co-operation, companionship and mutual support.

A community which is self-sustaining and self-managed by its residents.’

The design group. Design for easy social interaction is a feature of CoHousing. Another sub-group has spent considerable time and effort in exploring possible designs for their new enterprise – learning what works elsewhere and what does not. They have a strong interest in an ecological approach to their living quarters. They hope, when the possibility of a new building or a building conversion arises, to be able to make an input to its design so that it meets their needs in an affordable way.

The engine room group. This is a small co-ordinating sub-group who take on the responsibility for planning the monthly meetings and for pushing OWCH business forward. They have, with the help of their consultant, worked to develop the OWCH CoHousing Company Ltd., a company limited by guarantee, of which all OWCH members will eventually become directors. They intend this to be a prelude to forming a Housing Co-operative at a later date. The residential group will be a mix of women who will own their own flats, part own and part rent them or just rent them and they will need a legal framework to support this and their relationship with Housing for Women, which will own the rented accommodation.

The future

It is a test of endurance and sticking power to stay committed while the years go by, members get older and there is no accommodation in sight. OWCH members are still supremely optimistic that they will eventually realise their dream home together with the help of Housing for Women and a supportive local authority. What is possible in the Netherlands should not be impossible here, surely? Meanwhile, the group grows and welcomes new members; friendships are forged; women have fun and the ground work for the future is strengthened.

The OWCH Newsletter

Women who want to keep in touch with OWCH progress and possibly become members in the future can become associate members and subscribe to a quarterly newsletter produced by the group.

The OWCH video

A 14 minute video, filmed in late 2000, features four Dutch older people’s CoHousing Communities and the OWCH group in London. Entitled ‘CoHousing: a Different Way of Living’ it offers a picture of the benefits and advantages of CoHousing as seen through eyes of older people who now live in the groups they have developed.

How to contact OWCH

Anyone who is interested in hearing more about the OWCH development can contact them by e-mail (owch@lineone.net) or by post (Send A4 sized s.a.e. to Older Women’s Cohousing, P.O.Box 29777, London NW3 2RH). Maria Brenton can also be contacted by e-mail (maria.brenton1@ntlworld.com).