577 Square Feet
If you are willing or able to wait, oh, say eight, ten months, maybe a year or two, you may find yourself at the top of a senior housing list, and have the opportunity to inspect, yea, perhaps even occupy, (paying 30% of your income,) a place of your own. And occupy it you will, seeing as it will be virtually impossible to participate fully in the life of the greater community by going very many other places. With only a few existential exceptions....the grocery store, the doctor's office, a hospital, a church.... you can't get There from Here.
Work. You want to work? You need to work to make your property tax payments, to fix your roof or your mower, or your teeth? To go to the movies, a friend's house, out to lunch, to a yard sale or committe meeting? Forget it. No transport to third shift work, from outlying communities to jobs, to work on Saturdays, or Sundays, or evenings. Transportation to work is not seen as essential for seniors.
Many of the members of select boards, planning committees, zoning committees, and various town offices have traditionally been held by elders in the community, elders who are used to mobility, used to autonomy and independence. People who brave snowstorms and twenty-degree below zero weather to hear and act on citizens' concerns. People who cook for community suppers, sorting for book and plant sales, support school activities as audiences, attend town meetings and speak up in person and on the pages of community newspapers. When we've wrung all that work out of those folks, what do we offer in return?
577 square feet of warehouse. People in dead storage: leave your imagination, your passion, your intellect, your courage, your outrage at the door.
Think about it.
-Lady Grey
If you are willing or able to wait, oh, say eight, ten months, maybe a year or two, you may find yourself at the top of a senior housing list, and have the opportunity to inspect, yea, perhaps even occupy, (paying 30% of your income,) a place of your own. And occupy it you will, seeing as it will be virtually impossible to participate fully in the life of the greater community by going very many other places. With only a few existential exceptions....the grocery store, the doctor's office, a hospital, a church.... you can't get There from Here.
Work. You want to work? You need to work to make your property tax payments, to fix your roof or your mower, or your teeth? To go to the movies, a friend's house, out to lunch, to a yard sale or committe meeting? Forget it. No transport to third shift work, from outlying communities to jobs, to work on Saturdays, or Sundays, or evenings. Transportation to work is not seen as essential for seniors.
Many of the members of select boards, planning committees, zoning committees, and various town offices have traditionally been held by elders in the community, elders who are used to mobility, used to autonomy and independence. People who brave snowstorms and twenty-degree below zero weather to hear and act on citizens' concerns. People who cook for community suppers, sorting for book and plant sales, support school activities as audiences, attend town meetings and speak up in person and on the pages of community newspapers. When we've wrung all that work out of those folks, what do we offer in return?
577 square feet of warehouse. People in dead storage: leave your imagination, your passion, your intellect, your courage, your outrage at the door.
Think about it.
-Lady Grey
posted by Lady Grey at 4:37 PM
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