Fed up with living alone, Germany's elders get roommates

Last year, the roommates in Dresden had 47 visits, all neatly registered in a black leather-bound notebook. Most stay for coffee and cake. Some stay longer.

"When I came in, I saw the room available and said 'I'm moving in,' " says Schmidt, whose eyes twinkle in a face etched with wrinkles.

After her husband died suddenly three years ago, she decided to move out of their home. She visited the Dresden apartment with Susanne Reissmann, whom she has known for 60 years, and the two decided to move in together.

Rather than feeling the loneliness she had experienced in her former apartment, Ms. Reissmann immediately clicked with her new roommates. "We complete each other so well," she says.

The only man in the house, Röttjer, is around when IKEA furniture needs putting together, or pictures hung. The youngest, Sylvia Behrens, is the baker, and Irene Rostalski, who has lived there the longest, likes to cook and organize trips.

The group gets together at least once a week for dinner in the common kitchen and living room. Most of the time, they go on group outings together as well, touring the old towns of nearby cities or heading to the theater.

At night, they retire to their rooms - each outfitted with a small kitchen and bathroom - that line the common hallway.

"Everyone has peace and quiet in the evening," says Nagel. "But I know that if I need someone to talk to, there's always someone there. And that is so important for people our age."

Each pays between $350 and $500 rent to the real estate developer who shouldered the $55,000 it cost to renovate the eighth-floor apartment.

The high price tag on making homes and apartments compatible with the needs of older people is often the biggest hurdle in getting developers and architects to back such projects, says Sieglinde Wartenberg, a founder of the lobby organization Alt Werden in Gemeinschaft, or "Getting Old Together". For the past eight years, the Dresden group has matched up prospective roommates and found architects and developers to build the flats and homes to house them.

Since helping get the Dresden apartment off the ground in 2000, Mr. Wartenberg has spoken at national conferences about similar projects. Until now, governments at all levels have been slow to set aside money that could help fund apartment-sharing projects, something Wartenberg says is a missed opportunity.

"It's not a solution on its own, but I think many problems can be solved in the future in this way, like the isolation or the care [of the elderly]," he says.

When a roommate gets sick or injured, the others are quick to help out, says Wartenberg. Reissmann didn't have to worry about grocery shopping after falling and injuring her leg. Ms. Behrens, who is diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, has found the energy and moral support in the Dresden flat that was missing in the apartment she shared before with other Parkinson patients.

"I told them about my condition and they said it was no problem," says Behrens quietly, her preferred volume. She pauses to look around her room in which photos of her daughter share space with books on the architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser. "In a nursing home, you get old very quickly," she says. "Here, you feel young again."

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