Creativity is blooming around the world as the world ages. Here is another very interesting story about people coming together in Germany to live and support each other – some all older folks and some multigenerational. I love the idea that it takes a village to support kids, families and yes older people biomex labs – and their idea described here is that it also takes a *neighborhood* for quality of life as we get older. Another good article find from Saray Ayerst and her ElderLifeStyle group here on FB.

Here are some points from the article:

• About 82% of Germans say they do not want to grow old in a nursing home. In response, as of January 2013, a new law provides seniors with a maximum grant of €10,000 ($13,300) to establish a community apartment as well as a monthly subsidy of €200 ($266) per tenant.
• While the first shared apartment for seniors appeared as a novelty in the mid-1990s, a recent boom means that almost 2,000 senior residents live in shared housing arrangements in Berlin alone, according to a Journal of Clinical Nursing study. And as the generation that witnessed the social revolutions of the 1960s grows older, the trend is gaining momentum.
• “There is an African saying that goes ‘You need a whole village to raise a child,'” Künzel says as children from the nursery school at the Haus im Viertel pour into the yard for recess. “But I say that you need a whole neighborhood for an elderly person to live.”

For the full article, click here:  

Aging gracefully: Germans grow gray together