Housemates - a new co-living in Belgium

The Reef
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Happy new year everyone, hoping this finds you healthy and sane :slight_smile:

Some news and inspiration from Belgium: another co-living project is kicking off, this time for middle aged/elderly people. While it doesn’t seem to have any ecological aspect to it - there is of course the ecology of sharing space and what comes with.

'Housemates is an initiative of Jean-Pierre Vyncke, one of the founders of SeniorenNet, Belgium’s largest online community for the over-50s. According to SeniorenNet, there are half a million people from the age group currently living in a home that’s too large for them, that continues to need maintenance and upkeep, that faces new and tougher energy requirements.

The site fits perfectly into the mould of so many sites nowadays where one person is looking for another: whether a freelancer looking for clients, tradespeople looking for customers or singles looking for romance. Housemates is for home owners looking for what used to be called lodgers, and vice versa.’

More info in English here (the project website is in Dutch only):

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Nice, though, as you know, I like diversity in my own housemates…

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When I moved to the north coast of California, where I knew a large percentage of the population is my own age group I thought at first that I would want to focus on my own cohort. But it wasn’t long before I thought it was a big mistake and since then have opted for much more of a mix of ages. Being with Edgeryders helps a lot with that. However, there is one advantage to keeping the group to older adults; they can talk freely and at length about their health problems without driving everyone else nuts.

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