To celebrate our new-look Two Generations website, we’re launching our Blog and will keep you up to date every month with news and views about Homeshare.
Founder and CEO Sam Brandman was the subject of this piece in the Standard when he and Natasha Langleben launched Two Generations several years ago and it’s still as relevant today, and maybe even more so as the experience of loneliness continues to grow among our older communities
CORAZON MILLER, 12 DECEMBER 2019
When Tilly Howard was growing up in a poor family in early 20th century East London, going to university was never an option.
Her family had limited resources to send her to school and she was part of a generation where women were not expected to further their education.
So she spent her early adult years raising her two children. It was not until she was in her fifties that Howard went to university for the first time, graduating with a chemistry degree. In her eighties she followed this with a second degree in classics.
At 90, after having overcome cancer twice and open heart surgery, Howard took part in a table tennis world record bid for the greatest number of successive shots played by successive players.
They won, grandson Sam Brandman recalls. Though he believes the record may have since been surpassed.
He remembers his late grandmother who he called “Glam” as a “formidable woman” with a wealth of knowledge to share.
“However, she lived alone and I felt sad that her brilliance was not shared with anyone.”
So, not long after his grandmother died, two-and-a-half years ago, Mr Brandman felt compelled to do something to ensure that other elderly folk did not have to spend their later years alone.
And so his concept Two Generations was born – a Homeshare model that helps link the older generation, with the younger generation.
Mr Brandman said it offers companionship, a chance to share experiences and common interests and a potential solution to the housing crisis.
“It offers companionship, the ability to share experiences and end loneliness. It allows people who might not ordinarily connect to connect,” he said.
His social enterprise, which is part of Homeshare UK, works by matching an elderly person with a younger person willing to help in a live-in homeshare arrangement.
Using the company’s in-house technology people were matched through shared hobbies, religious or cultural needs, gender, age and lifestyle choices.
The younger person will provide approximately 10 hours a week of household support such as gardening, shopping or laundry whilst also providing vital companionship.
Mr Brandman said it was a network, that proved particularly useful at a time of year when people sometimes felt the loneliness more keenly.
“We are often contacted by children of older people who live far away and who are unable to visit often, which shows that even those with family can experience isolation,” he said
One recent happy match is that of 91-year-old Dennis and Syrian refugee Jorge. The duo have been living together for the last six months in Camden.
Their common link – an interest in politics and food.
“It was the perfect fit,” Mr Brandman said.
Jorge said it was good to have someone to share a home with. “It’s nice to have someone to care about; going back to a home rather than being alone is wonderful. Dennis is really sweet,” he said.
“It’s been going really well and I hope it continues this way.”
For Dennis the company and the extra hand around the house was much appreciated. “He’s been doing most of the cooking, and it’s been lovely having a bit of company in the evening,” he said.
It is a project Mr Brandman hopes to refine – thanks to a £25,000 Nesta Challenges grant given to businesses working on solution to today’s societal problems.
With his grant Mr Brandman hopes to improve the matching-technology his company uses that he believes is a first in the homeshare sector. His plan is to hone its ability to link the elderly with a potential young person, in what he describes as a kind of “dating-website”.
Information on the site is protected from the public, and each person is subjected to thorough background checks and interviews before they are linked up with an elderly person.
