The Rev. Kenneth Dupin, a Methodist minister in Salem, Virginia, might just revolutionize the way our country deals with its ever increasing elderly population. After an emotional encounter with a woman confined to a nursing home, Dupin decided to develop a novel, if not controversial, alternative to sending our loved ones to living facilities that are often over-crowded and under-staffed: the MEDCottage—a small, self-contained living space that can be placed in the backyard.
The MEDcottage would be equipped with the latest technology to monitor vital signs, filter the air for contaminants and communicate with the outside world via high-tech video. Sensors could alert caregivers to an occupant’s fall, and a computer could remind the occupant to take medications. Technology could also provide entertainment, offering a selection of music, reading material and movies.
The dwelling would take up about as much room as a large shed and, like an RV, could connect to a single-family house’s electrical and water supplies. It could be leased for about $2,000 a month, a cost Dupin hopes will be borne by health insurers.
Some wonder, however, whether such a plan would undermine residential zoning laws and create an untenable precedent:
“Is it a good idea to throw people into a storage container and put them in your back yard?” said Fairfax County Supervisor Jeff C. McKay (D-Lee). “This is the granny pod. What’s next? The college dropout pod?”
Such temporary shelters might work in rural and sparsely developed parts of the state, McKay said, but the impact could be enormous in crowded urban and suburban areas.
“This basically sets up an opportunity to do something legally which, prior to this, had been illegal—which is to set up a second residence on a single-family property. It turns our zoning ordinance upside down,” McKay said.
If societies are judged by the way they treat widows and orphans, the weak and the helpless, will this kind of solution—and our response to its implementation—be able to withstand the judgment of posterity? Are we willing to sacrifice our well being for loved ones that have done the same for us? And what is an appropriate level of sacrifice?
May 6th, 2010 | 3:31 pm
It doesn’t seem any worse than shipping them off to remote facilities and forgetting about them.
I couldn’t care less about the zoning laws.
May 6th, 2010 | 3:37 pm
A social worker visiting a religious education class I attended a year ago introduced these as an option for housing the homeless on the lots of residents willing to act as “hosts.”
I wonder if now marketing them as private residences for Grandma is a way to get more pressured applied to change zoning laws to achieve the original purpose.
May 6th, 2010 | 3:57 pm
I have no problem with it… the “appropriate level of sacrifice” is one that each family must determine – no one can do it for us. One family I know has two children, one with ausbergers and was caring for a mother with dementia in the home. Their heart was to keep her with them but after she broke her hip and needed extra care, they were no longer able to do that and care well for the rest of their family. Now she is nearby and they visit her but they are able to leave the house for a date or child’s school play without worrying about her.
As for zoning laws, these don’t typically regulate whether grandma can live with you. These pods are no different than equipping a bedroom for her – except that they come pre-equipped, right – and provide her with extra privacy so your two year old doesn’t disturb her sleep and her sleepwalking into the kitchen doesn’t threaten everyone’s safety. Local government should make an exception for this kind of family care of elderly loved ones.
May 7th, 2010 | 8:48 am
As the Tiny House movement knows, if it’s smaller than a certain size, zoning laws don’t matter.
It would be feasible to build one of these for a little more than the projected monthly rental price and save the money for renting the medical technology.
My great-grandmother lived in a tiny cottage behind her eldest daughter’s house for years. This was in a small town in Texas, though. And they had a large enough lot to make this practical. In fact, Mamaw had her own backyard, in which she gardened.
Anyone interested in the movement, just google ‘Tiny House’ for a wealth of information.
May 7th, 2010 | 8:52 am
I am unable to adequately think this thru…since I am now consumed with wanting my own pod. Clean, serene, reading materials…to those in the thick of everyday life in an overcrowded household it sounds pretty good!
May 7th, 2010 | 12:15 pm
Objections to this idea represent some of the individualist cultural and anthropological assumptions implicit in our ubiquitous post-1945 suburban single-use zoning ordinances. Virtually every American settlement built before 1930 allowed a mix of uses and variety of housing types within pedestrian proximity, including out-buildings associated with both attached and detached single-family houses. Such out-buildings most frequently took the form of a coach- or carriage-house that had a stable or garage on the ground floor and a small residence above. That this form of owner-supervised “affordable housing” is now in most places both illegal and unimaginable speaks volumes about the short-sighted assumptions about human well-being that inform our contemporary use-based / use-segregating zoning ordinances. This “granny pod” is a great idea, and I would be willing to bet that it will be popular as well.
May 7th, 2010 | 10:45 pm
How cool, that “modern progress” would lead to an Amish dawdihaus. That reinforces my belief that we can usually look to the past to find revolutionary solutions for current problems.
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