Generations of Hope Communities: An intergenerational neighborhood model of support and service

A Generations of Hope Community (GHC) is an intentionally created, geographically contiguous intergenerational neighborhood, where some of the residents are facing a specific challenge around which the entire community organizes. In this paper we discuss philosophical principles that ground GHCs, critical insights which have emerged from over a decade of experience with Hope Meadows (the first GHC), and the strategy used in GHCs known as Intergenerational Community as Intervention (ICI). Meaningful intergenerational relationships and purposeful engagement within the neighborhood make the ICI strategy distinct and transform a community into a GHC. The intergenerational community itself becomes the intervention—the key source of support and service. Social services are dramatically changed when the focus of problem-solving shifts from intervention in community to community as intervention. When intergenerational community becomes the intervention, the gifts and talents of ordinary people of all ages and vulnerabilities become available in new ways, and a multitude of social challenges (e.g. supporting adoptive families of foster children, helping stabilize the lives of teenage mothers or homeless youth, and interceding in the lives of youth involved in the juvenile justice system or young mothers facing reentry following incarceration or drug treatment programs) begin to find new solutions.