Helping Hill Residents Stay in the
Neighborhood as They Age
by Mike Canning, Capitol Hill Community News

Geoff Lewis didn’t want what happened to his mother to happen to him. The longtime Capitol Hill resident’s mom had a difficult end-of-life experience with assisted-living facilities – she called them “geriatric boarding schools” – and Lewis, 65, was seeking something better for his own “golden years.” Moreover, he wanted to stay in his comfortable Hill house, “surrounded by the people and in the community I love.” It was thinking about how to do this and reading a timely AARP magazine article that led to his discovery of a Boston-based organization, Beacon Hill Village, that helps people remain in their homes as they age. “That’s for me,” he thought.

In March 2006, community activists Nicky and Steve Cymrot encouraged Lewis to form a similar organization on the Hill. Together they identified a group of like-minded neighbors who both desired to prolong a lifestyle they prized and to better organize their later years. What was almost a pickup group quickly evolved into a board willing to take on the challenge of creating a new kind of enterprise for Washington. A series of discussions about what to do and how to come together followed.

Out of these meetings emerged Capitol Hill Village, a nonprofit organization founded by local residents to support one another as they grow older. Using Beacon Hill Village as their model and its manual as a guide, several people met on May 3, 2006, at the offices of Riverby Books (owned by the Cymrots), where the “Village” idea crystallized, and the first CHV board of directors was formed. The group began meeting every two weeks.

“The enthusiasm in those first few meetings was extraordinary,” recalls Lewis, “ and before we really knew it, we were off and running. Our work was made much easier because Beacon Hill Village had pioneered the idea, and Judy Willett, its executive director, graciously and enthusiastically provided us with all the materials and information on processes used to get the program up and running.”

Washington lawyer Alan Dye helped the Village quickly incorporate and achieve tax-exempt status. Then, over the next six to eight months, the board collected necessary startup funds, researched possible services, constructed a database, fashioned a business plan and budget, and began seeking out organizational partners with links to seniors. Th e board established annual fees at $500 for an individual and $750 for a household.

“We needed to give identity and credence to our effort,” Lewis notes. “So early on, we decided on a name (Capitol Hill Village seemed so apt) and a logo. Norman Metzger (vice president of the board) was prescient enough to say that we needed a Web site, and one of our board members, Neal Mann, stepped up and volunteered to do the technical work of setting the site up. Hunt Smith Design, a Hill business, conjured up the logo, and both Phoebe Smith, owner of Hunt Smith, and Chris Hoch designed the Web site.” (The group’s Web site can be found at www.huntsmithdesign.com)

In order to take the community’s pulse about what the Village might offer residents, board members began holding community meetings in their own homes, the first in August 2006. CHV board members have held over 17 community meetings to alert Hill residents to this concept of “aging in place” and to solicit ideas about how best to live a full life in their own homes.

The first sessions were fact-finding ones, with board representatives gleaning information to help shape the Village agenda. Virtually all attendees indicated that they wanted to stay in their own homes as long as possible, and many saw themselves as potential volunteers to contribute to such an organization. Over time, a pattern developed as to what kinds of services should be offered. Principal among them were services of a handyman or home repair person, house cleaning, access to and information on healthcare, tax and financial advice, meal preparation or delivery, transportation assistance, “look-in” services and some kind of “life-enrichment” activities providing social outlets for members. One meeting attendee nicely dubbed this activity listing as a “Zagat’s guide for services” on Capitol Hill.

Besides continued and better access to the practicalities of living, some attendees at these community meetings expressed the hope that the Village concept, once realized, could also contribute to a greater sense of community and solidarity on Capitol Hill. One participant quipped, “It takes a village to care for a senior,” to express the community dimension.

By mid-December 2006, the CHV, now assured its nonprofit status, began a vigorous fundraising campaign aimed at both the attendees at the community meetings as well as other Hill residents. A board of trustees was created to lend a significant community profile. The founders felt the nascent organization needed prominent Hill citizens as trustees to make the Village a credible actor in the community and to assist in fundraising. Fundraising, with trustees serving either as significant contributors or solicitors of contributions, has been essential for securing necessary funds to get the program up and running.

The trustees adopted two novel ideas to infuse CHV with funds quickly: “founding donors” and “charter members.” One could be a founding donor by contributing $1,500 outright to the Village; a charter membership ($1,300 for an individual, capitolstreets Helping Hill Residents Stay in the Neighborhood as They Age $2,000 for a household) was offered to persons willing to sign up for two years in advance.

After some months, the basic “buzz” on the Village idea began to spread. A March 10 article about CHV in the Washington Post’s real estate section was crucial to its visibility, and the community meetings evolved into information sessions, bringing attendees up to date on the board’s activities and actively recruiting charter members and founding donors.

By April 15, the end of the charter membership and founding donor offers, over $170,000 had been raised for the Village. This gave the organization enough funds to recruit and hire an executive director and establish a small office.

The core concept of the Village is that, for a yearly fee, members can call a single telephone number to receive assistance or plan activities while remaining in their own homes. Though volunteers of all ages have expressed interest in providing some services that will be included in a yearly fee (for example, “look-in” services, planned transportation, computer help), other services, like homecare or a roofer, would require an additional cost. An important part of the program is that Village staffers will not only book volunteers and service providers for the member but will follow up with that member to assess how the service was performed.

With this kind of “one-stop shopping,” the Village hopes to obtain discounted rates for some services and perhaps, more importantly, to have them carefully vetted for members. The hope, too, is that some services desired by members will spur new entrepreneurs on the Hill to meet those requests, making the Village a small-business incubator.

A testament as to how the Village concept may appeal comes from charter members Steve and Sandie Lotterman, both in their 60s and considering the various options – assisted living, a high-rise apartment, a nursing facility – for the next stage of their lives. Yet they loved living in their house on Capitol Hill and thought CHV offered a way to continue that lifestyle. “We’re already in a village environment on the Hill,” Steve Lotterman says, and “Capitol Hill Village off ers us the possibility of continuing to live that way.” He adds, “For us, there is no other alternative that comes anywhere near the Village concept.”

The search for an executive director began in February and resulted in the selection of Gail Kohn, a highly qualified leader with 25 years experience in aging services. Prior to taking on the job, Kohn was with Linking Partners LLC, a firm she created and manages. Her clients have included Sunrise Development Corporation, the largest US corporation offering older adults long-term care, and Harvest Housing Corporation in Manchester, England, among others. Until 2003, she was CEO of four Collington corporations, including a continuing care retirement community located in Mitchellville, Maryland, known for its racial and economic diversity and quality services.

In taking on her new post, Kohn emphasizes her experience in developing new programs and in running significant organizations (like Collington), adding that “my focus has been on building a program of excellence while constantly working to improve it and never thinking of [the organization] as being perfect.”

Kohn has lived in Arlington since 1975 with her husband, Donald, vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. The Kohns have two married off spring and three grandchildren. Though living across the Potomac, Gail eagerly embraced the idea of scouting Capitol Hill and, after expending considerable shoe leather, felt that “I’ve gotten to know Capitol Hill and have a good initial sense of the place.” She made her first public appearance in her new role as executive director at a May 22 community meeting on the Village at Market Five Gallery.

Kohn has been “impressed with the friendly community spirit present here.” She is now working in a centrally-located Capitol Hill office which was donated to the group last February.

From its inception, the idea of the Village was not to duplicate already existing services in the community but to serve as a link to them, a concept Kohn endorses by saying that the Village “should fulfill its mission by supplementing others’ roles…I want to respect and celebrate all that’s already being done for people who live here.”

From early on, the Village board agreed to eschew a specific member age limit (Beacon Hill uses the cut-off age of 50) and make its services available to those who may need them for illness, disability or other reasons. As Kohn sees it, “We are interested in folks of all ages, not just those at the age of apprehension.”

Though the CHV founders envision that most residents who join the Village will be able to afford the annual fees, they also hope to be able to subsidize, through grants and donations, Hill residents of lower income, as Beacon Hill Village has recently done. The Capitol Hill Community Foundation has already granted the CHV $5,000 to underwrite some of its startup expenses, and Spring Creek Foundation awarded the Village a grant of $10,000 to subsidize membership fees for those of lesser means. Other grants are also being sought.

Capitol Hill Village expects to become fully operational by Oct. 1. “The single ingredient that has made the amazing rate of progress possible,” says Lewis, “was the interest of those involved. The board has been absolutely incredible in their willingness to roll up their sleeves and get to work. Everyone has pitched in when and wherever necessary to assure that the program will operate smoothly and efficiently.”

Asked about his ultimate hopes for Capitol Hill Village, Lewis replies, “I am confident that CHV will become a thriving and vibrant force in and for the Capitol Hill community. I see it providing services to the diverse population of the Hill, allowing people of all ages and all economic and social backgrounds to live together in a community that cares.”

He follows up that general hope with a more personal one: “ I am also looking forward to the time when I can again retire (from his role as president) and call one number at Capitol Hill Village to get anything I want!”