Torch Passed At Home Haven

Frances ​“Bitsie” Clark is leaving Lauri Lowell with a challenge: Convince more Baby Boomers that they can continue to live out their youthful communal ideas as seniors.

Clark issued that challenge as she turned over to Lowell, a card-carrying Boomer, the reins of an organization called Home Haven.

Clark, a former Arts Council chief and New Haven alder who turns 86 this month, has run Home Haven since 2011. The not-for-profit group has six component ​“villages” in East Rock, downtown, Westville, Amity, and Hamden and North Haven. Part of a national movement responding to the fact that people are living longer at fuller capacity, Home Haven enables seniors to stay in their homes later in life and connect with other seniors for friendship, social activities, and help with chores.

Clark retired from the post this past Friday. Lowell, who has worked as a clinical social worker, Jewish Community Relations Council director and geriatric care manager, has taken over.

Under Clark’s energetic direction, Home Haven has grown to 250 members. The members help run the group, organizing cook-outs, movie nights, lectures, Tai Chi classes, and a widow/widower support group. Younger members, in their 70s, say, drive older members to doctor appointments or ferry refugee families through the group IRIS. Clark at one point snagged 20 tickets to the Broadway musical Hamilton for a group outing.

Clark said she developed a greater appreciation for seniors’ capacities during her tenure at the helm of Home Haven. She also saw how society at large undervalues the potential of seniors.

She remembered how as a city alderwoman in her 70s, she voted to close senior centers. She regrets that vote now.

“There’s still an attitude that older people should be in warehouses, that they are not fun to be with. That they can’t be useful … That when you get older, you’re not as good. That’s crazy,” Clark said Tuesday during a joint appearance with Lowell on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program.

“People have to stay active and involved to feel useful.”

While she had success growing Home Haven’s membership, Clark said she encountered a challenge: The desire of Baby Boomers — who came of age with the slogan ​“Don’t trust anybody over 30” and listening to anthemic song lyrics like ​“I hope I die before I get old” — to avoid feeling or appearing elderly.

Lowell said she’s ready to take up that challenge. She spoke of how Home Haven’s mission taps into all those communal 1960s values. ​“We are all interdependent. We do not live in silos,” she said. ​“People need an opportunity in Connecticut, to contribute and be part of a community” and engage in activities that endow life with meaning.

With the Baby Boomers aging, she’ll have an ever-growing pool of potential members to tap. She said she plans to emphasize ​“wellness.” ​“It’s more than a catchphrase,” she said. ​“It is a way of living so you enhance your capacities and adapt to your incapacities — learning to be adaptive and be more creative.”

Bitsie Clark, meanwhile, is selling her New Haven home and moving this month to Hamden’s Whitney Center. She said she hopes to get involved in both the busy communal life there as well as Hamden’s Arts Commission. With another successful chapter behind her, more successful acts await.

Click on or download the above audio file to hear the full WNHH FM ​“Dateline New Haven” episode with Home Haven’s Bitsie Clark and Lauri Lowell. Click on the video below to watch it on Facebook Live.

Learn more about Home Haven activities here or call the organization at 203 – 776-7378. Home Haven’s annual meeting takes place at the Whitney Room of the Whitneyville Cultural Commons, 1253 Whitney Ave. (corner of Putnam), on Sunday Oct. 29 from 4 to 6 p.m.