Senior Living Options: The Golden Girls Model

You saw the show. Four senior women living together, getting into hijinks and throwing out jokes left and right. Didn’t look half bad, did it? Did you ever watch the Golden Girls and think that’s what I want my life to be like when I’m that age? You’re not alone.

Most seniors will reach a day where they need to consider the extra help that comes with an assisted living community or nursing home. But in the meantime, seniors are increasingly coming up with ways to stay in traditional home environments longer. The trick to many of these solutions, like the Beacon Hill model we covered previously, seems to be banding together with other seniors.

The Golden Girls model takes a similar approach, one unabashedly inspired by the hit show of the same name. For single women of a certain age who don’t want to deal with the upkeep and cost of living in a house on their own, they find other senior women to share the space and help with all the tasks of daily life.

Why the Golden Girls Model Makes Sense

Researchers have long known that women tend to outlive men, often by well over a decade. And senior divorce is on the rise as well. That means lots of women of the baby boomer generation are reaching an age where it’s certainly nice to have some extra help around the house at around the same time they find themselves single for the first time in years.

Living alone is hard. For those who aren’t interested in switching from living in a house to living in an independent living community, finding an option that falls somewhere in between the two can make the difference. A shared home with other senior roommates can hit that sweet spot.

How to Find a Golden Girl Home

If the golden girl model sounds right up your alley, the challenge is finding the right home and roommates for you. The Golden Girls Network was set up precisely to solve this problem.

You’re not just searching for anyone that needs roommates; you can specify what you want in a roommate and try to find people that are the right match for you.

The site is designed to facilitate a number of different living models. Do you want to rent out rooms in the house you live in now? Move into someone else’s home? Find a place to rent with other likeminded women? You have options.

As the name makes clear, the website (and the larger movement) have mostly come about with women at the center of them. That doesn’t mean they’re exclusionary though. Men are allowed to join the network and seek out a golden girls home situation as well.

Finding roommates can help you save money, make some new friends, and ensure you don’t have to maintain a house entirely on your own. If you find the right roommates, you may find yourself living amongst a small community that feels like family. And you can forestall the trip to the nursing home for a few years and keep up the lifestyle you have at home longer.

Kristen Hicks

Kristen Hicks is an Austin-based copywriter and lifelong student with an ongoing curiousity to learn and explore new things. She turns that interest to researching and exploring subjects helpful to seniors and their families for SeniorAdvisor.com.