Intergeneration living
The indirect cost of adult and childcare is borne out of social and economic circumstances that means we now live further apart than we once did and away from kinship of small close-knit communities and extended families. In this respect, older homes are more capable of inventive adaptation, infilling, and extension, and can be cost-effective, but not exclusively. New housebuilding (social housing exclusively) results in conventional housing typologies. Understandably funders prefer this certainty, but it does not allow for changing circumstances.
From a European perspective, Germany has 450+ purpose-built multi-generation projects, forming a key part of the national housing strategy. The Netherlands via the Social Housing Experimentation Unit has a policy goal of 500k units by 2040. Spain’s ‘Vive y Vive’, La Caixa, subsidies the cost of the elderly who act as home sharing hosts. Denmark has a strategic alliance between the city of Aarhaus and Braband Housing Association.
Community kitchens can create hybrid capital systems where food is cooked and shared equally, economising spends, supporting local food supply chains, reducing food waste, heating and cooking costs, improving nutrition, building community and individual resilience, developing mutual support networks, facilitating informal care arrangements and improving general health and wellbeing.