Inter-generational Community Review: Griot Village, Cleveland Chicago

Griot Village, Ph. D. Emma Garland

https://intergenerationalhousingblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/17/griot-village/

The informational article that I found, titled "Griot Village!", is a blog post by a researcher named Emma Garland. She received her PhD at in history at the University of Hull before changing careers to become a Policy and Research Officer. She was awarded the Winston Churchill Traveling Fellowship to facilitate her inter-generational housing research project. She originally hails from the UK but visited the US to research successes that we have achieved here in America with inter-generational communities. Her journey took her through Cleveland, where she researched the Griot Village.

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Griot Village was originally designed for seniors that are caretakers of their grandchildren. The complex consists of forty units for families, spanning several blocks dedicated to the project secured with grant money that took over six years to collect. There is not only the housing complex, but playgrounds and activity centers. Across the street is their own residential living facility for older people that don't want to age in that community but want to stay close to their families.

The activities directors are passionate about their work and throw themselves into the task of creating programs for all citizens of their community for various means, from relieving stress and post-traumatic anxiety to life development classes and art programs. Apparently, workers there love the job so much that "she works 20 hours a week but is only contracted for 6". Emma sees this as a boon to their community, and surely their effort should be applauded, but I worry that this simply means there aren't enough bodies to go around and the caregivers and other staff may be losing critical self-care time.

According to the author, there are many unique problems faced by the over 7000 grandparents in Cleveland that are caring for their grandchildren. As we know, many senior housing projects forbid the occupancy of children, as they can be a nuisance to people without children. This poses many problems for their community at large, because families need access to affordable and stable housing to raise happy, secure children. Without secure children, we have much larger societal problems coming up the pipeline.

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Griot Village overall seems to be a very well thought out system that does a great amount of good in a neighborhood that needed the hand up. Emma certainly believes so, as her blog has a very favorable tone of the community. Because I can't phrase this any better, here is a direct quote from her blog that truly sums up the cornerstones of a great community;

" 1. Ensure you have a purpose and are clear on the type of community you want to build and why.

2. Ensure you have the right staff in place – in terms of qualifications, willingness and personality – without this it will not work.

3. You have the right residents – this type of living is not suited to everyone so you need to ensure residents want to be part of one big community who will look out for and help each other.

4. Planning – your future residents must be involved in the planning and design. Plus you need to think about the future and how you will transition on seniors or children as they get older."