Become a Member
Life

A stranger in your spare room? Yes!

Could a new scheme to find lodgers be the answer to a boomer's dreams? Jan Shure finds out

July 8, 2021 11:11
GettyImages-1173423942
Mixed Race Adult Daughter Teaching Elderly Mother to Use Laptop at Home. Older People Can Learn a Laptop Computer and to Use Gadgets
4 min read

As a member of the baby boomer generation — born after the Second World War but before 1960 — who is hurtling towards old age, I think I can confidently speak for many Boomers, as well as those of the preceding ‘Swing’ generation when I say that most of us are looking for new solutions to the issues of, ahem, older age.

Ideally such solutions will allow us to retain control over our lives — at least until frailty or chronic illness means we have no other option.

Not only do we dislike solutions in which we sacrifice agency but population statistics and greater life-expectancy make several decades of care or care-home living unaffordable for us, for the UK economy — and certainly for the Jewish community’s welfare organisations. The government has promised to fix social care. I’m not holding my breath.

So, Boomers and Swingers are looking for new solutions. One, of course is “sheltered” housing — private apartments within a supported environment. These are burgeoning in the private sector at every level but demand so far outstrips supply that they are available only to those most in need.