On June 10, 2001, The Boston Sunday Globe Magazine printed "Grandfamilies", an article by Mitchell Zuckoff about grandparents who are raising their grandchildren. We have excerpted portions of the article to bring you the information it contains about subsidized housing for grandparents raising grandchildren, and how the resident adults go about caring for the young.
In this article, most of the grandparents involved are beyond the age of Grandboomers. However, from what we see, as more baby boomers become Grandboomers, there will be a continual rise in the Grandboomers raising their grandchildren. The Boston facility is based on economic need. In the future, such accommodations might be provided for a more affluent clientele. Comments from our viewers are welcome.
From the article:
GRANDPARENTS RAISING GRANDCHILDREN, IS A WINDOW INTO A GROWING DEMOGRAPHIC TREND: NATIONWIDE, 1.5 MILLION CHILDREN ARE BEING RAISED BY THEIR GRANDPARENTS.
GrandFamilies House (is) the nation's first subsidized housing project exclusively for grandparents raising grandchildren. GrandFamilies House is a place of grab bars in the bathrooms and monkey bars in the backyard. It is a place where grandmothers are losing their teeth to age and grandchildren are losing them to the Tooth Fairy. When the oxygen-tank delivery man makes his rounds to sickly grandparents, he must remove childproof outlet covers before he can plug in his equipment. The doorways are extra wide to accommodate strollers for the young and walkers for the old. There are field trips to the zoo for the children, ambulance rides to the hospital for the elders.
Its first-of-its-kind status makes GrandFamilies House ground zero -- a controlled, if at times chaotic, atmosphere -- for examining the effects and possible responses to a demographic boom. There are about 50 children in the project on any given day, a tiny slice of the more than 1.5 million children being raised by their grandparents nationwide, with more joining their numbers every day. In general, children living with grandparents are on the lowest rung of the economic ladder. Fully 50 percent of children living under their grandparents' roofs nationwide do not have health insurance, compared with 15 percent of children overall. They are 50 percent more likely to be poor than other children. Two-thirds of grandchildren living with single grandmothers are surviving below the poverty level, a 1998 census study found. "The bottom line is a lot of these grandparents aren't even hooked into where to go to get help," says Jean Bellow of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. "They're alone out there."
There is nothing new about grandparents taking in their children's children in times of need or loss. But in the past decade, grandparent-headed households have increased by more than 50 percent in the United States. The missing mothers and fathers - the "gap" or "skipped" generation -- are lost to violence or drugs, alcohol or divorce, mental or physical illness, tragic accidents, immaturity, irresponsibility, or some combination of them all. Some of the missing parents are long buried. Some have simply disappeared. Some are just a few miles away, living apart from their children in another home, on the streets, or in jail. They cross all racial, ethnic, and social lines, but poor, black families are disproportionately represented. What would happen, the nonprofit developers of GrandFamilies House wondered in the early 1990s, if children and elders in similarly rebuilt families were brought together under one roof? Could their common needs be met more effectively and their similar circumstances bond and enrich them? Or would the dysfunction and dislocation that brought them together defeat them all? The answer, it seems, is a little of both.
GrandFamilies House opened in 1998 after a $4 million renovation funded through a mix of public and private sources, organized by three nonprofit groups: Boston Aging Concerns/Young and Old United; the Women's Institute for Housing and Economic Development; and YWCA Boston. In addition to relatively low-cost housing, the agencies' goal was to provide a mix of services, including transportation, counseling, day care, and even recreation, such as an arts-and-crafts class for the grandparents. The 26 apartments are filled, and there is a waiting list for openings.
Though different in many ways, all 26 families in the house -- most headed by widowed, divorced, or otherwise single black women -- have much in common. Above all, their lives are marked by a common theme of loss. The children have lost their parents, and the elders have lost their children. As Janice Painten puts it: "We're the ones who stayed behind to care for the wounded." In 2G is Janice Painten, 60, one of only two white grandparents in the building. She is raising her 9-year-old grandson, Michael, and trying with mixed success to rescue her fractured family. Michael is the son of Janice's daughter, Heather, who is in prison.
On the first day of school, Sonia Booker stands in the lobby of GrandFamilies House with 3-year-old Kiara, waiting for a bus that will take the girl to preschool. When it finally comes, Sonia lets out a theatrical cry - "Oh, freedom, freedom!" - then leaves in search of her own bus, one that will take her downtown to the Edward W. Brooke Courthouse. Sonia, a handsome woman with a regal bearing, is heading to court to win temporary custody of Kiara, with the blessing of the girl's mother, 23-year-old Leah Sweet. (Custody is granted.)
Jean Bellow of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children estimates that a grandparent might receive $392 per month, while a foster family might get as much as $615 per month for taking in the same child. The federal government estimates the minimum cost of raising a child in the Northeast to be between $642 and $765 a month.
Several states have equalized the aid given to grandparents and foster families, but legislation to do so in Massachusetts has failed repeatedly in recent years. Lawmakers have balked at the potential cost. Supporters have lowered their expectations so much that they are now simply asking the Legislature to approve a formal study of the situation, to assess how much money would be needed to equalize payments.
(This is the end of the excerpt.)
The Boston house is a prototype, certain to benefit from a host of trials and errors. If you, as a Grandboomer, see the need for this type of housing in your area, start the ball rolling now by contacting your legislators and community service groups.
© 2012 Created by Myles Bristowe.
