A Sustainable Retirement Home and
Preparations for the end
of oil make it essential to build more multiple family dwellings and stop
construction of individual houses. Elderly people have great problems in caring
for yards and doing the necessary upkeep on their houses. Many of them live
alone, thus greatly increasing their per capita heating usage. The remedy for
this is to build more senior apartments, thus emptying many houses and helping
to prevent the construction of new ones. From the standpoint of the future it
would be worthwhile to build very good, and very long lasting apartments, even
to the point of high subsidization. However there is quite a bit of wealth
among the elderly so financing would be not a great problem. If the place were
partially administered by the elderly then overhead costs could be cut. It
would be easier to find part time services to help the elderly if there were a
concentration of them.
The senior center idea
should be combined with the idea of building a sustainable structure that
should last as long as possible and be a place to experiment on energy saving
ideas. The building should be built in a square format and should be well
insulated to reduce heat leakage. Sewage facilities for the building should be
self contained, and should include water recycling, and fertilizer from sewage.
The heating system should include cogeneration, use of waste fuels, and solar
energy. There should be experiments with solar power and wind power. In order
to have the space to do these things the project should be on an acre or more
of land. Gardens and plant experimentation should be an important part of the project.
The energy projects
could not be done without the cooperation of the local colleges and
Universities. They could incorporate these projects into their engineering,
architecture, and shop courses. A coalition of mechanically inclined students,
professors, retired engineers, and volunteers together with some paid help
could get together to do the work. One of the major efforts would be to lobby
the U of M, EMU, and WCC to participate in this project. Some of the equipment
designed as part of the project could be made into marketable products.
A cooperative made up of
seniors should be formed to nurture, plan, finance, and advertise this project.
More owner participation will help to bring costs down and the resultant
cooperative management can do a better job of administering the building. A lot
of senior facilities that
are administered by private companies are so high in cost that
many seniors elect to live in ordinary apartments. Surely, some of these costs
could be reduced while improving services, if the administration and planning
were done by the seniors themselves.
Another tactic would be to buy an existing building and set it up for
seniors. Cooperatives that act partly as extended families could solve many
problems for seniors.
This is one way that
elderly people can help their grandchildren and at the same time help
themselves. We must stop building houses and manufacturing cars if there is to
be a future. Massive changes in city planning to reduce vehicular transportation
must be made. We have to introduce the concept of apartment buildings where the
dwellers work in farming and manufacturing while walking to work. A lot of
ideas can be explored in a single building.
This may seem like an
impossible task to some of you but if we do not get our
population working together on conservation. There will be no future for
the children.
Kermit Schlansker PE kssustain@provide.net >http://www.provide.net/~kssustain/