Intergenerational Living between College Students and Senior Housing Residents: A Framework

Ageism, the discrimination against persons of a certain age group, is one of the most important civil rights issues of the 21st century (Palmore, 2015). There are community-wide and personal strategies to combatting ageism. Homesharing and cohousing each offer concepts that can be utilized in intergenerational living because of their housing infrastructure. The relationship between college students and senior housing residents is unique because both groups are experiencing a season of life with common characteristics. This project aims to understand the relationship and tensions between stakeholders of existing intergenerational living programs to develop an implementation plan for a program at Western Kentucky University and a local continuing care retirement community, Village Manor. Existing intergenerational living programs can serve as models, but the creation of a new program requires unique problem-solving and decision-making to fit the culture of both the university and the senior housing community. Each stakeholder, through contributing a unique component to the program, will benefit from the program; the expected shared benefits are identified in Table 1