Page 15 - C.A.L.L. #44 - Fall 2018

There’s community and

consensus. But it’s no

commune

A small movement with an ungainly name, cohousing is appealing to more people of
retirement age – and younger – who no longer want to be isolated.

Tom Verde, The Independent

Moving into a new house that’s roughly a 90-second walk from that of your parents may not be
the ideal living condition for most adults – in fact, for nine years that familial proximity provided
most of the plot lines and barbed jokes of the TV comedy Everybody Loves Raymond – but

that’s what drew Ben Brock Johnson, 37, to Amherst, Massachusetts.

In December, Ben, his wife and their newborn twins moved to a two-story, three-bedroom
house in the Pioneer Valley Cohousing Community 120 yards from his parents, Jane and Kit

Johnson.

“The house is probably the furthest away from my parents that it could be and still be within the
community,” Ben Johnson says. “So there’s a nice buffer zone there.”

The 32-unit development on 23 acres of farmland is designed to encourage a cross section of
people – young, old and in between – to live together in a village-like setting. That means more
opportunities for Ben’s parents to see and care for their grandchildren, while still having their

privacy.

“We did talk about boundaries, but that aside we are thrilled to have Ben nearby,” says Jane
Johnson, 74, a retired librarian from Stonington, Connecticut, who moved to Pioneer Valley

with Kit, also 74, in 2013.

Pioneer Valley is one of 165 cohousing communities in the US, with another 140 in the
planning stages, according to the Cohousing Association of the United States. Most of these

intentional communities are multigenerational, while a growing number are either
predominantly or exclusively occupied by older residents. People own their own homes and
can sell them on the open market. Residents pay into a fund to maintain facilities and

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