Are you too old to join an intentional community?

A frequent question from older adults considering communal living is, “Am I too old to join an intentional community?” 

It’s a reasonable question for anyone in life’s later years. Whether you have been nursing a dream to join a community for decades or it’s a relatively new idea, age can be a factor in your ability to join the community of your choice.

Some of you may feel like the moment has already passed. Finding a community is something you should have acted on decades ago and now it’s too late. But maybe there is hope! Maybe, just maybe, you can find a supportive community where you can contribute in meaningful ways into your sunset years. 

Do communities want new members in their senior years? Will you be able to contribute enough? Should you join a senior or multi-generational community? How about accommodations for aging in place?

The article below provides answers to these questions and more. The focus is specifically for adults older than 50, who we’ll call “seniors” for simplicity.

A culture of honoring elders within intentional communities

There is no doubt that our society does a poor job of providing care and purpose for our older population. 

We call our seniors the elderly instead of our elders. One word concotes a frail older person with nothing left to contribute, while the later brings up feelings of respect, reverence, and power. 

Intentional community residents tend to favor the term “elder.” (A few have even incorporated the word into their name, such as Elderspirit and Elderberry, two senior intentional communities.)

Intentional community living offers a chance to embrace a different culture. 

Instead of glorifying youth and shunning the old, intentional communities tend to support a culture that respects all ages for their unique contributions to the collective. The aim is to provide everyone with a high quality of life, regardless of age. 

Mainstream society (particularly in the US) is based on an aging model where you either save enough money to care for yourself or face the prospect of an institution caring for you. Elders are pushed into retirement to make room for younger employees who can be hired for less money. A cold cost-benefit analysis supersedes care for people and relationships.  

Meanwhile, community living harkens to the intergenerational model present throughout the majority of human history. 

In community, we’re trying to move deliberately away from defining security in terms of bank balances, and towards a wealth of relationship. In short, we’re trying to address a major societal need without relying on a governmental safety net. Further, we want to do that with dignity, which generally means finding ways for everyone—young and old alike—to contribute meaningfully to the health of the whole.

—Laird Schaub, The Intergenerational Challenge

Senior vs. intergenerational intentional communities

To begin with, an important factor when discussing aging in communities is the difference between senior intentional communities and intergenerational intentional communities. 

We’ll start by looking at senior intentional communities.

Senior intentional communities

Senior intentional communities are age restrictive. Typically membership is limited to those 55 or older. People of all ages, family and friends especially, come to visit and spend time in the community, but only members of a certain age can live there permanently. 

Most of us are only familiar with retirement communities or senior communities that are not of the “intentional” sort. We imagine a planned community in Florida with endless rows of matching homes and abundant golf courses. 

The primary difference between the typical retirement community and a senior intentional community is that in an intentional community it is the seniors themselves who are in charge. 

Seniors own their own homes, common spaces, and shared infrastructure. They make decisions together. They are not beholden to an outside entity. Many senior intentional communities take pride in the fact that they are the ones who maintain their spaces (while of course hiring out for some tasks as necessary. Window washing on scaffolding, for example.)

Because seniors own their community, they get to shape the culture around values that are meaningful to them, especially providing for a graceful and dignified aging in place. 

Senior intentional communities by definition are well equipped to provide for the practicalities of aging in place — think elevators, wheelchair accessibility, air conditioning — as well as the emotional needs, such as mutual support, engaging activities, and beautiful environments. 

Resources for finding senior intentional communities:

• Sagecohoadvocates.org – SAGE (Senior Cohousing Advocates) provides a list of communities that are specifically for those 55 years or older located in both the US and Canada.
• Seniorcoops.org – Seniors looking for more cooperative housing as they age will appreciate the Senior Cooperative Foundation (SCF) with a list of 100+ senior coops in the United States.
• The Senior Cohousing Handbook – This book is a guide to all things related to joining and starting a senior cohousing community. 

Anyone contemplating aging in a community would do well to consider senior intentional communities for the multitude of benefits they offer. 

Not the least of which, they tend to be easier to join. So long as you have the resources to afford it, a space is available, and there are no major clashes in values or behavior, you’ll find it straightforward to find a home within a senior intentional community.

However, the vast majority of seniors want to join an intergenerational community. 

We’ll focus the rest of this article on such communities. 

Intergenerational intentional communities

Intergenerational communities are open to members of all ages. 

In a larger intergenerational community you can find families with small children, adults of all ages, and, of course, those in their elder years. Seniors tend to want to live in such a village setting because there is the opportunity to engage with those in different stages of life. They imagine the support that can come through having neighbors of differing abilities, as well as the ways that they can contribute to the younger generations. 

Most intentional communities that exist are intergenerational. They want to create a village-like setting that mimics what has existed for much of human history and still predominates in more traditional cultures throughout the world. 

Why some communities don’t want more seniors

As much as communities embrace a culture of support for all ages, there are some practical considerations that may make a community hesitant to accept too many seniors. 

Intergenerational communities need to take care not to become too top heavy. 

The idea of a dynamic community of multiple generations supporting each other won’t work so well if the majority of people are in wheelchairs at the same time!

An aging population has become a problem in many older communities, especially those started in the hippy era of the 60s and 70s. 

Findhorn, for example, has an average resident age of 55, and Bergholt Hall has taken to curating its intake to balance aging residents with young families and, like other 1960s and 1970s-established communes, is exploring financial instruments to enable incomers with little access to capital to join the community, such as shared ownership and loans. This means that single applicants to Bergholt Hall who are in their 50s and 60s (who represent over half of approaches) are likely to be disappointed. But it also means “elders” tend to step back when it comes to decision-making by consensus. “There’s an awareness that new families are on their way in, and we’re on the way out,” Dave Hodgson adds.

— The Guardian, Is the boom in communal living really the good life?

A careful review of various intentional community directories will help determine which communities are open to more seniors. It tends to be newer communities or ones in an expansion phase. Searching for the term “senior” in the communities directory provides a list of communities that are especially welcoming of seniors. 

If in doubt you can simply ask as part of the regular process of contacting a community.

Don’t let your age hold you back from reaching out to a potential community. They’ll let you know what kind of member they are most looking for. 

An easier way to do a community search for places accepting seniors is to have a community matchmaking session. You’ll get advice and custom recommendations for communities that are a fit for your specific situation. 

Age sensitive communities

There is a category of intentional community that is especially sensitive to the age of its residents. Communities that run businesses to sustain themselves and/or are income-sharing or commune communities may be more intentional about managing their number of seniors. 

For example, Twin Oaks Community is an income-sharing community that provides for the basic needs of all its members. They have a special building in the community (the only one with air conditioning) where their elders live. At the same time, they rarely accept older adults because of the necessity that they balance out their population among those who can work in their businesses with those requiring end of life care. 

As a senior, you’ll tend to have an easier time joining a community that doesn’t require a young workforce and that isn’t already inundated with other seniors. 

Questions to ask a community as a senior

As you move through the membership process with a community, there are some senior specific questions you may want to ask:

• What are the ages in your community currently?
• What’s the relationship dynamic like between the younger and older people?
• What accommodations do you make for aging in place?
• Have you had to care for seniors before? How about at the end of life?
• What should I expect of the community if I need special care someday?
• In what ways do seniors typically contribute to your community?
• How will the inheritance of my home and property work within your community?

The Guide to Visiting an Intentional Community has a full list of questions to ask communities before and during your visit. 

Qualities communities are looking for in older prospective members

Your age will be considered as one of many factors that will make you an attractive candidate for an intentional community or not. 

As a senior, it’s important that you do some self-analysis to explore what you can contribute to a community and be sure to emphasize these qualities while in the membership process. 

The main thing a community is looking for in prospective members (regardless of age) is an attitude towards contribution. Beyond what you can get out of living in community, are you ready and willing to do your part to help the collective? 

Communities are looking for people who have a positive outlook on life, aren’t done learning, want to show up to be of service, and are honest about their ability to contribute in different ways. 

Sure, you may not be the one out there shoveling snow or stacking hay bales, but there are plenty of ways you can contribute to a community through the later years of life. Below are some ideas for contributions that may apply to you.

What seniors can contribute to a community:

Time

Retirees and empty-nesters simply have more available hours to contribute to a community. Independent of their skills, the sheer ability to devote more time to developing a community can make seniors of tremendous value. Fostering a vibrant community life, with activities, projects, and engagement, can be challenging for those with outside jobs and dependents. Seniors can show up when others can’t.

Mentoring

Seniors can bring a wealth of experience into an intentional community. There is a variety of skills that younger people can learn from elders, as well as helpful attitudes and perspectives that come with simply having been through more experiences. And of course, the wisdom sharing goes both ways. In a healthy community, both youngers and olders can learn from each other. 

Committee work

Research, admin, bookkeeping, problem-solving, and more tasks are needed to keep a community up and running. Seniors can bring previous career experience or openness to learning some of the skills that don’t demand too much physical engagement, but are mentally stimulating. Committee work can be an excellent area for seniors to bring value to their community.

Childcare

In many cultures there is a natural bonding between children and elders. While parents are busy with day-to-day work, seniors can find a meaningful role in helping with childcare, something that so many parents struggle to find and pay for in our society (especially in the US.)

Mediation

When conflicts brew in community (as they often do), seniors can play a valuable role in mediating disputes and helping to find resolution. Of course, depending on the past experience of the individual, there may need to be additional training required to be an effective mediator. But seniors can have the discretionary time and life experience required to make this an especially useful role for them in community.

Resources

While not always the case of course, seniors can come into a community with more cumulative wealth and material resources to share with a community. They can have the ability to make donations or loans to help make projects happen, gift art or kitchen equipment, or simply share more baked goods than anyone else. Having someone with additional resources can help balance out income-inequalities within a community and improve everyone’s quality of life. 

Short answer: No, you are not too old to join an intentional community.

Don’t let your age stop you from considering joining an intentional community.

For both senior and intergenerational communities alike, people in their older years bring richness and experience that is essential for a thriving community. We need seniors in community!

Moreover, intentional communities can provide working models for how society can value elders. Communities show how seniors can age in place with dignity and grace, surrounded by supportive neighbors. 

Seniors of all ages, even into their 80s, have successfully joined intentional communities. You can do it too. You can find purpose and support within community in every phase of life. 

You may need to be selective about which communities are a fit, however. Hopefully this article has helped you with some of the considerations involved with joining a community as a senior.

For more information, the Foundation for Intentional Community offers excellent online courses regarding aging in community. Learn more about their offerings. 

To get recommendations for communities that are welcoming seniors and may be a fit for your specific situation, consider signing-up for a community matchmaking session. 

Let’s hear from you! 

What has been your experience with living in or trying to join an intentional community as a senior?