New Haven Independent

Snyder (at left in photo), who’s 73, has walked to his law office off the Green since he moved into his Canner Street home in 1965. Porter (at right), who’s 76, walked to his job at Yale since he moved to Bishop Street in 1968. Since retiring as a French professor, he continues to walk there for weekly gatherings.

They love walking around East Rock — to Nica’s market, to East Rock Park, to downtown concerts. They love bumping into friends on the street. They love their homes.

At an age when others are preparing to sell their houses and reserve coveted spots at retirement homes like the Whitney Center, Snyder, Porter and a couple of dozen other east side seniors have hatched a plan to stay living the urban life they cherish.

They’ve formed a not-for-profit group to launch a “retirement community without walls.” They envision a network that enables seniors to stay in their homes and use their collected resources to hire home-health aides; to meet up to exercise or play bridge or take trips; to find trusted repair people for their roofs or electrical fixtures.

They’ve worked on the plan for three years. They’ve gotten traction; “East Rock Village” could open as soon as the end of 2009 or early 2010.

For a hoped-for 200 seniors, it won’t mean opening a door to a facility. The “center” will be the streets themselves around East Rock.

Which is where the idea took form.

It Took A “Village”
Snyder, Porter, and a bunch of fellow East Rockers came across the idea on Feb. 9, 2006 when they read this article in their local daily newspaper, i.e. The New York Times. It was about Beacon Hill Village, a not-for-profit community of Boston seniors who have stayed in their homes by jointly hiring health aides and repairmen and organizing social activities.

When they saw each other on the street, the East Rockers, some of them semi- or fully retired, others approaching that stage, brought up the article. We should do that here, they said.

Snyder was thinking not just of his own situation ten years from now, but about the experiences of his estate clients and of his own parents.

“As one gets older, many of us get into an easy chair. You don’t feel like going to the symphony or even playing bridge,” he said during a conversation Monday by the picnic benches at East Rock Park’s College Woods section. “You tend to become isolated, sometimes depressed. I’ve seen it.”

“There’s a trend in our society today to think when it becomes difficult to manage your own residence, it’s time to think of moving out of our own residence” to a retirement home, he reflected. Tasks as simple as putting in a light bulb — never mind lining up a plumber or electrician you can trust, who will do the job right and not overcharge you — can feel overwhelming.

Snyder has friends and clients at the Whitney Center. They like it there. But when he reaches their age or physical condition, he doesn’t want to give up independent, city living.

Nor does Porter. “I wouldn’t be able to go on foot to concerts at the university” or to his weekly gatherings at Yale’s Koerner Center for Emeritus Faculty, he said. He wouldn’t be able to walk the half block to Nica’s, or to bump randomly into neighbors. He’d miss the company of the “wonderful” graduate student families who successively rent his home’s third floor apartment. He especially appreciates their company since his wife died three years ago. He enjoys sharing the house with the couple who live there now. And their baby.

“It gives me the comforting noises I need,” said Porter. “I grew up in the city of Chicago. I can’t bear the thought of living in the suburbs.”

In casual conversation, they discovered many of their peers felt the same way. Snyder would bump into John Hay, the retired pastor of the United Church on the Green, outside their homes at Everit and Canner.

“Are we going to do this?” Hay asked one day.

“Let’s call a meeting,” Snyder responded.

They did. Then they called more meetings.

By 2008, they had consulted health experts, discussed a possible link-up with the Whitney Center, and piled into Snyder’s Toyota Highlander to visit Beacon Hill for a firsthand look.

Now they’ve formed a not-for-profit organization to replicate the experiment here. They’ve enlisted 24 core volunteers, including seven board members. Snyder is the board president. Other members include Rev. Hay, retired banker Harvey Koizim, and Yale urban studies guru Doug Rae. United Way and the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven are helping the organization get started. The Adler Clinic is helping out, too.

In coming months they hope to find 200 fellow seniors to sign up for the community, people in their 60s or 70s or 80s and at various stages of work or retirement life. Most members would pay $1,000 a year, if they can afford it; those who can’t would be subsidized. The group’s also looking for outside charitable money.

Snyder said the Village is on track to “open” by the end of 2009 or early 2010.

The community will cover the Whitney Avenue corridor from downtown New Haven, through the East Rock neighborhood, into Hamden up to about Skiff Street. It will also include Wooster Square. To get involved call 752-9319 or email here.

The group is also working on finalizing its 501(c)3 not-for-profit status and lining up health services and recreation opportunities, such as the athletic facilities at Albertus Magnus.

Some 15 variants of retirement communities without walls exist in the country; others are popping up. One model is to affiliate with a retirement center to share services and possibly reserve spaces for members if they eventually do need to move into a physical center. A Bloomfield retirement home plans to launch such a community-based affiliate with the help of a new state law.

Ultimately the East Rock group decided to operate independently instead of affiliating with the Whitney Center.

“We wanted to have our own organization to determine what we wanted, rather than go to another institution and say, ‘This is what we want,’ and they come back and say, ‘This is what we can do,’” Snyder said. “We could have more organizational clout if we weren’t just buying something that they offered.”

Meanwhile, the core group’s members are meeting at Lulu’s every Monday at 10 a.m. to chart their progress. They go there on foot.