Welcome to JoeyCo. I’m so glad you’re here.
My name is Alison Donnally, and I’m the founder of JoeyCo. I want to share with you how my professional experiences in healthcare and personal experience as a mother and family member led to starting JoeyCo.
For me, JoeyCo starts close to home.
In the last several years, three close family members experienced mental and physical health declines while living alone. My spirited grandmother-in-law experienced several falls while living alone and then faced rapid health decline during months of COVID isolation in a nursing home. My uncle’s dream of a woodsy retirement turned dangerous when he was found disoriented, driving down the wrong side of the road. My aunt, once happily living alone and active in her community, fell in her shower and there was no one there to help her for several hours. These family tragedies highlighted for me the profound effects of living alone. Each of these people close to me were once vibrant and independent, and after extended periods of aging in isolation, needed significant step ups in medical care. Could their experiences have been different with a Joey around before it all got too serious?
Folks, housing and healthcare are tough issues!
Sadly, my experience with family members is not unique. Every human in the US (either for themselves or a loved one) is facing critical interrelated challenges: a loneliness epidemic, high costs of living longer (both senior housing and healthcare), caregivers feeling overworked and undervalued, insufficient or inadequate housing, just to name a few. I’m not saying we can completely solve every single one of these with JoeyCo, but bear with this appropriately ‘delulu’** founder, and dream with me what if we could!
** Gen Z, did I do that right? For the uninitiated, ‘delulu’ is the super hip way of saying delusional. This millennial mom has still got it, I think…
And yet, as universal as these needs are, the need for help is also deeply personal. I recall a conversation with a friend who said her ideal helper for her parents would have to be a sci-fi book conversationalist - immersing themselves in new worlds is what brightens her parents' minds. Current protocols and medical care simply do not capture the relationships we need to build to get ourselves out of these seemingly intractable problems.
What if we had au pairs for older adults? (?!?)
Au pairs are a more affordable live-in childcare option. (Source: AuPairCare.com)
** I say relatively because everything in childcare is expensive! 67% of parents are spending 20% or more of their annual household income on child care - Department of HHS considers it affordable when it is <7% of income.
My “aha” moment came as a new mother exploring childcare options. The au pair system enables non-US citizens to experience US culture while living and working in childcare for a family. It turns out that subsidizing care costs with shared living space makes a ton of sense - au pairs are a relatively** affordable care solution for American families. This realization coincided with my observations working at Kaiser Permanente and Amazon Care, where our ability to rapidly expand access to healthcare in new areas was nearly always slowed down by recruiting quality licensed professionals fast enough. The demand for healthcare services seemed to always outpace our ability to supply it. How might we expand our supply of people helping others achieve better health outcomes?
As these experiences percolated, I started to wonder: why can’t “au pairs” help with our aging populations too? The J1 visa program that governs the au pair system is very specific to child care. But it turns out we have a domestic source of talent that is in desperate need of affordable housing and flexible employment: university students.
“It’s the meme of that dog.”
Wait… could we help college students, too?
Nearly half of college students are housing insecure. Yes, read that again. Half. The Hope Center at Temple University does incredible research on student basic needs. One student they talked to put today’s student experience clearly, “It’s the meme of that [cartoon] dog sitting in a fire and saying ‘It’s fine’. You have to get a degree to get a damn job but you can’t get a degree without having a job to pay for the damn degree.” Could I design a combo housing/job marketplace that also helps college students burdened by looming student debt, unable to find affordable housing, and entering an uncertain job market?
Can we solve everything everywhere all at once? ;-)
JoeyCo emerged as an answer to these intertwined challenges. By connecting students with older adults, we create a symbiotic relationship where both parties benefit. Students find a safe and stable place to live and employment that fits around their school schedule. Older adults can design the support they need to live their best years at home, increasing their ‘joyspan’ and delaying the medical needs of their ‘healthspan’.
I am energized to create connections that enrich lives and communities, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to bring this vision to life. JoeyCo is more than a service or a marketplace; it's a community of shared needs and hope. The challenges that face our neighbors are our own.
