Our History

Janet Witkin founded Alternative Living for the Aging (ALA) in 1978 because she believed that older people need alternatives to living alone and alternatives to institutionalization. Many skillful, helpful, generous people helped create Alternative Living for the Aging with Janet.

ALA's Housing Alternatives for Seniors - our free Preinterviewed Housemate Matching Service, established in 1979 out of a Beverly Boulevard Storefront in the Beverly/Fairfax area of Los Angeles, began as a Model Project in Aging for the United States.

ALA purchased, re-designed, and renovated an existing duplex to house 9-12 seniors. Coop I, our first Cooperative Apartment Community, opened on May 1, 1982.

ALA purchased two adjacent buildings that had been designed for group living. We connected and renovated them across a courtyard to house 14 - 18 seniors. Coop II, the Rothman House, opened on January 15, 1985.

ALA's Service Center moved to our current location on Fairfax in the Spring of 1986.

ALA moved (from Westwood where it would have been demolished) and renovated a charming historic 1929 Spanish Colonial Revival Courtyard Building to the Beverly/Fairfax area. The El Greco -The David & Sylvia Weisz Family Courtyard Apartments - opened on December 31, 1986. Several of the original residents from 1986 happily reside at the El Greco today, along with some active, newer residents.

ALA built, from the ground up, the Liffman House in Santa Monica. We opened on December 31, 1987 - a beautiful small three story building.

ALA built, new construction, our fifth Cooperative Apartment Community in West Hollywood. The delightful Schutrum-Piteo Senior Courtyard Apartments opened on December 31, 1991.

All of ALA's buildings are attractive and located near services that seniors may need: markets, transportation, entertainment, senior centers, senior activities, doctors, hospitals, churches, temples, pharmacies, etc.

Throughout our history, we at ALA have offered our free Preinterviewed Housemate Matching Program to the community. We have counseled over 26,124 people and facilitated matching over 7,787 to share housing in their own homes (apartments, condos, houses) and in ALA's Cooperative Apartment Communities - so that older people may enjoy companionship, save money, and gain a greater sense of safety and security - both from crime and from being alone.

ALA's work has been featured in many publications, including The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor and the Encyclopaedia Britannica's 1986 Medical and Health Annual as an innovation in housing for aging in America. Betty Friedan discussed Alternative Living for the Aging at length in her book, The Fountain of Age.

We've also been featured on The Today Show, National Public Radio, NBC News, as well as numerous local and national radio and television programs.

ALA's Executive Director Janet Witkin has been an invited speaker to the United States House of Representatives Select Committee on Aging, Princeton University, the Minnesota State Legislature, the California Legislature, the Governor of Maryland's First Statewide Shared Housing Conference, AARP in Washington, D.C., UCLA, the Los Angeles Commission on Aging, the Santa Monica Commission on Older Americans, and with the First Lady of the Czech Republic - regarding ALA's innovative housing programs.

We've had visitors from all over the world -- Australia, Sweden, Japan, Israel, Canada and the Czech Republic, as well as many places in the United States, come to see our prototypes in order to take them home to house their elders.

We look forward to serving many more older people who need affordable housing alternatives- alternatives to living alone and to institutionalization.