In This Nursing Community, Recent Grads Get Cheap Housing in Exchange for Spending Time With Older Residents

The Sunshine Home nursing community in China is offering recent college graduates inexpensive housing if they will volunteer to socialize with senior residents, reports Considerable . To be allowed to live in a low-rent environment, young tenants must spend at least 20 hours a month interacting with older residents so they feel less lonely. "In most cases, they just want me to be in their room while they are doing their own thing," says one 26-year-old resident, Situ Keren. Senior Sunshine Home resident Liu Cuiyu says she especially appreciates younger residents' knowledge and ease with technology. Intergenerational housing is not new, and it has proven to help improve many older adults' social well-being and general mood.