One of the quite many times I was in Paris, I was there with my daughter and we had planned to do the typical “tourist-things”. Heading to Tour de Eiffel a woman in her 70-75 stopped us when we were about to pass her, quite abruptly, with her cane.
Help me, please, she said impatiently and pointed at her food-bags next to her feet.
Of course, I replied, and prepared to carry the bags.
You are not French, she said in a tone that sounded both disappointed and anticipating at the same time. As if I was not the delicious bird the cat wanted to eat, but still probably a tasty bird.
No, I am from Sweden. I tried not to sound to irritated, since I actually do speak French and even though it is far from perfect, I think I manage.
You do not speak good French. She lifted up her hand, as if she kind of disregarded me, and then quickly pointed at her bags with one eyebrow raised. As if I was not quick enough, helping her.
I thought to myself it was a funny feeling, being treated kind of rudely, whilst at the same time trying to help her. But we helped her, even though it took quite some time, because she would not let us go. She wanted to tell her story about how she came to live in Paris and she wanted me to tell her my story why I loved Paris. And even though she corrected me, quite a lot, we had (kind of) a good time. My daughter was bored but got some candy once and while and the old woman was really happy to pass some time talking to someone. She had almost nobody left from family or friends, and the neighbors didn’t always have time to talk with her.
Elderly people in Europe (and I guess in North America) is getting older and older. And thus becomes a larger group of the whole population. Now people 65+ are 20 % of the whole population; in 30 years they will be 30 %. And the greatest change is that people 85+ will live longer.
But what kind of life will we have, as 100-110-120…?
If I am a single woman, I don’t want to live totally alone and then die and lay dead in that apartment for some time. This year we heard about a man in central Stockholm that lay dead for three years in his flat. I want to live in a cooperative housing, on my terms but within a community, as long as I can.
Cooperative housing is the solution for so many things. It offers possibility for social meetings between neighbors, for instance during dinner. The buildings can be built with extra space for workplaces, since it is more popular and common than ever to work at home.
Statistic shows that quite a lot of elderly people feel the same way. The most vulnerable aspect in many lives of elderly (women) are the social and economical factors of being forced to live by themselves in a small flat. Maybe far away from their children and grandchildren, where a lot of relatives and old friends has already passed away.
Why doesn’t our governments plan to build more collective buildings? Or why doesn’t construction companies / landlords build them? Probably there is not sufficient economical profit in building cooperative housing I guess. I will return to this subject, with good examples of people that have come together and built it for themselves. So to be continued…