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Home Share
Program is Great Idea
By Tucker
Sutherland, Editor
July 17, 2003 - We received a plea to
our email bag from Karen in San Francisco, who was seeking an older
person in Spain, who would provide her housing in exchange for care
services. This concept struck us as a great idea and with a little
help we found a Web site that promotes this idea and has a national
directory to local Home Share programs.
The first local program we contacted
was Jewish Family Services of Metropolitan Detroit
www.jfsdetroit.org - that has a number of great social programs.
Becky Eisen heads the Home Share program and she gave us the Web
address of the National Shared Housing Resouce Center
www.nationalsharedhousing.org.
This is what they say about their
efforts
For
a growing number of Americans faced with losing their independence,
shared housing is an affordable and viable alternative.
A home sharer might be a senior
citizen, a person with disabilities, a homeless person, a single
parent, an AIDS patient, or simply a person wishing to share his or
her life with others. For these people, shared housing offers
companionship, security, mutual support and much more.
Shared living has been known to
enhance the health and well-being of all people and often prevents
unnecessary and premature institutionalization. It also preserves
neighborhoods and saves housing and healthcare dollars.
Shared housing programs fall into one
of two categories:
Match-up programs, which
help home providers find a compatible home seeker to pay rent or
possibly provide services in exchange for a reduction in rent; and
shared living
residences, which involve a
number of people living cooperatively as an unrelated family in a
large dwelling.
The site says they have scheduled the
seventh National Shared Housing Conference to be in San Diego,
California on November 7-8, 2003 at the Westin Horton Plaza Hotel.
Helping host the conference are HIP Housing, Elder Help of San Diego,
Lutheran Social Services and East County Council of Aging |
