“Taking control a little earlier and figuring out who you want to live with, what the rules are going to be, and how you’re going to deal with things I think is just sensible planning. And maybe with the pandemic people will be thinking a bit more in terms of, ‘oh look what can happen down the road.’” — Louise Bardswich

Episode available at lifewithoutuspod.com

Louise Bardswich is one of the four headline making (and legislation inspiring) Golden Girls of Port Perry and a sought after expert on how to re-imagine what aging in place can look like.

Louise and host Valery Navarrete connected in February to talk about how her community has fared in the last year of the pandemic, and how choosing to live together before any of them “needed to” set them up for greater independence over the long-term than any were likely to have experienced otherwise.

In this episode:

• The math you need to know if you plan to live a long and independent life

• How to design a shared home for accessibility and life stage changes

• The need for control: why living in community with a smaller group of people and rules you choose might suit you better than the alternatives in your senior years

• The renewed interest in the Golden Girls of Port Perry’s model and urgent need for more options following the crisis seniors in Canada have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Join our email list, send us questions, and provide guest / co-host / topic suggestions at lifewithoutuspod.com and @lifewithoutuspod

Find Louise and the Golden Girls of Port Perry coverage in

goldengirlsportperry.ca

The Ottawa Citizen

The Agenda on TVO

Find other episode references

They Left Us Everything by Plum Johnson