23. CNU 26 SAVANNAH
TALK 2 CHARITY HOFS
I’m excited to be here today with his group of
speakers, in this session.
SLIDE 1 INTRO Little Charity Hofs
This talk is about my family
And all of our families
And about where we live when we get old and
don’t fit in anymore
And about alternatives to nursing homes
And matching our medical and housing needs with
where we live
SLIDE 2 WESTVIEW NURSING HOME
My grandmother spent the last 15 years of her life
here, in the Westview Nursing Home (There’s no
view)
She was hard of hearing and almost blind
And She like the 24-hour attention
SLIDE 3 – Westview website
It wasn’t this glamorous…
For the rest of my family …
It’s the worst thing to get old and die in a retirement
home
And they’ll will do anything to avoid it
Retirement home options are It’s all about the
ability for your family to visit, and the community
there
SLIDE 4
My Memere and Pepere lived here
And died here, with hospice treatment
Only After my mother spent 1 day / week for 20
years driving them to medical appointments
Adult workers taking time out to care for parents
amounts to $34 bn / year in lost productivity
SLIDE 5
My mother-in-law lives here, in this traditional
neighborhood in Seattle. She’s’ 83 and insists
she’ll age in place
She’s surrounded by neighbors that call on her all
the time
And she still drives…but less than before
SLIDE 6 MERRILL GARDENS WEBSITE
Here’s her alternative…in the next neighborhood
over. We threaten her with this when she walk’s up
he kitchen ladder past the 3rd
step.
SLIDE 7 AMSTERDAM HISTORIC MAPS
So, I’ve been thinking about other models for aging
And I discovered an old-word alternative
Called “Charity Hofs”, or Almshouses
They’re really popular in the Netherlands
The first Hof I saw was in Amsterdam
…The Beguinehof…
It’s one of the oldest in the country.
It’s even included in all the old city maps
SLIDE 8 AMSTERDAM MAP
And Here it is in the context of the City, a 15
minute walk from the train station.
SLIDE 9 AMSTERDAM DK GUIDEBOOK PAGES
And Here it is in the Guide Book…with its own
page! It even has an axonometric view! So I had to
visit.
SLIDE 10 BEGUINEHOF VIEWS
It’s made of attached houses surrounding and
inner block garden
It’s for non-ordered religious women
SLIDE 11 BEGUINEHOF VIEWS
There’s an English church in the center
And a small hidden chapel, from the era when
Catholicism was outlawed
SLIDE 12 DEFINITIONS
HOF
Has Dutch, German, Flemish, and Norse lineage
Something like a garden courtyard surrounded by
houses
With a sacred component
24. A hof is an architectural unit of buildings
surrounding a court with restricted traffic (Van
Dale Dictionary of the Dutch Language)
SLIDE 13
As a formal type, they are usually
- A group of small attached houses
- 1 ½ to 2 ½ stories tall
- Facing into a courtyard, with few openings to
the street
- A Unit = “A window, a door and a dormer”
Provides individual identity while being part of a
community
Usually there was a patron, and building the Hof
was their work of charity
Usually a chapel or headhouse to memorialize the
sponsoring family
though not religious in a strict sense
SLIDE 14 - Paintings
Hofs are geared towards women
Usually for widows, pensioners
Women live longer, more likely to be alone in a
household
In USA, women live to almost 82, almost 5 years
longer than men
5 years with a diminished pension and savings
SLIDE 15
After Amsterdam I went to Utrecht
This is what the little city is known for…
SLIDE 16
But I was blown away when I saw that the City has
TOURS of their Almshouses…of their Hofs
SLIDE 17
Here are some views
The doors usually face into the courtyard, even if
the Hof has street exposure
SLIDE 18
Here are some more views of hofs I saw on the
tour
SLIDE 19
Here are some other Dutch Hofs….
Nice enough to have weddings!...and in the
Hospitality planning my office does, wedding
appropriateness is an interesting and common
measure for places
SLIDE 20
Hofs were common in Belgium too
Here’s a famous one
Especially for non-vowed religious orders
SLIDE 21
I thought these Hofs were cool and a humane way
to treat seniors
And really for all of the atypical households, the
non-nuclear families
Not too dense on their own but could be part of our
toolkit
Inward focused, around a green, so there doesn’t
need a great street address or view; it’s a minimal
real estate impact
But it needs a smart location; near some services
No parking needed! Or limited parking
SLIDE 22
I know there’s a million practical reasons why these
won’t work….but…
But…
Hofs could be a way to help make downsizing and
right-sizing more attractive
While maintaining independence
And liberation from maintaining a big house and
yard – here, yardwork is a social exercise
Hofs could have a place within the spectrum of
retirement, offerings
Or even as a model for affordable housing and
certainly a clear precedent for Cottage Courts
SLIDE 21
Hofs could help place social welfare in the toolkit of
modern development!
