Co-housing Community for Older Women
This week, The Guardian has featured the New Ground cohousing community exclusively for older women. Setting it up was an 18-year battle – but with soaring numbers of people living alone, is this an idea whose time has come?
Cohousing is nothing like living in a commune. Instead, people occupy individual homes that they can own or rent with additional shared space for socialising, taking classes and gardening. That this is an idea whose time has come, particularly for older people, is indisputable. In 2021, 3.64 million people aged over 65 were living alone in the UK, 70% of whom were women. In 10 years’ time, over-65s will have risen from 19% to an estimated 22% of the population, according to the latest report by the Centre for Ageing Better.
Remembering Dr Ellen Malos
We remember Ellen Malos who died in August. She was a leader and pioneer of the Women’s movement and of work to end male violence against Women. She came to Bristol from Australia and was a pioneer of Women’s liberation.
In the early ’70s, she was a founder of the first Women’s Centre / Pregnancy Testing Centre, and then the first ever refuge in Bristol (in her own basement), which marked the beginning of Bristol Women’s Aid.
She was a founder of the Domestic Violence Research Group (now the Centre for Gender and Violence Research) which has conducted key research and activism on behalf of survivors of violence ever since.
Ellen’s academic work and activism will live on, as will the huge difference she made to Women throughout her life, not only in the UK but in countries across the world.
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