Alfredo Bryce said that “the homeland is the friends”. The same can be said of retirement. At least according to what is happening in Spain with senior cohousing, the alternative to traditional residences that have been for decades the retirement spaces (or confinement, it must be said) of the elderly. And although these spaces are not designed for dependent people -in fact the age required to be part is usually between 50 and 70 years– if they are prepared for when that time comes.
the good company
Now it is the turn of Galicia, which has in the Ancoradoiro cooperative, the spearhead of this real trend among people of retirement age. As reported by ‘La voz de Galicia’, the journey of this initiative began in 2017, and it was nothing more than a dream of a few friends who, like so many others in different parts of Spain, began to wonder Why not grow old together, caring for each other and with the well-being that always comes from being in the company of friends?
Six years later, the project has materialized with the acquisition of some land in Nigrán (Pontevedra) where do you plan to have the 25 first housing modules in 2017. The modality, as usually occurs in this type of project, is not home ownership, but a assignment of use.
“Climate Shelter”
The project, in fact, is already beginning to be noticed in other latitudes. “People come from outside Galicia even. Galicia is a climate refuge. A land near the sea where you can build and spend the last years of life is attractive to many people”, Lucía Calvo, president of the Cooperative, assures the Galician outlet.
Ancoradoiro joins the different cooperatives that, with similar purposes, have been created by different regions of Spain throughout the last decades. One of the most successful is Trabensol, in the Community of Madrida pioneer project of “democratic self-management” to constitute “a family of families” as they say themselves.
pioneers
But in reality none of this would be possible in our country without the courage that women like Aurora Moreno or Ana Rosa Pérez, two of the founders of the first Spanish cohousing in Malaga. The Los Milagros cooperative was created in 1991 and after fighting against the distrust that the model aroused at that time, the first “neighbors” settled there nine years later.
Three decades later, there are almost 150 cooperative houses in Spain and 12 of them are exclusively for seniors. Ancoradoiro will soon join them, with his own rules and his own personality (no swimming pool, no pets, for example) but with the same desire to make aging an active experience (and collective).
