Several years ago I was coaching my son's FLL team (robotics/problem solving)... The theme that year was "senior solutions" and they came across an article about these temporary units. One of the features that I liked, was that there were cameras to make sure granny hadn't fallen... but they were placed at floor level in each room... so you'd see if Granny had fallen, but didn't need to see granny getting dressed, bathed, etc... She had some level of privacy.
We have a granny flat (700sf permanent detached 1br house) in our backyard. My in-laws lived in it for half of each year for 5 years. No cameras - but proximity was great. If MIL needed help with anything a quick phone call had us running to help.
In California there is the concept of "companion units". These are 700sf (or smaller) granny flats. The restrictions vary by community, but they must allow them in some form. In our city, which limited them as much as they legally could, required the lot be double the minimum (10k sf or greater), the companion unit be placed on the back 1/3 of lot (on a hillside in our case, unfortunatelly), and very limiting rules on where the offstreet parking had to be (something called a streetwall - this requirement eliminated about 90% of folks who wanted to have a companion unit.) Fortunately, we met all the requirements and try as they might - they had to approve our permit.
A neighboring city (Chula Vista) is the opposite - making it easier for folks to build companion units... auto-approval if you used their pre-approved plans, etc.
). Most of our friends are childfree--maybe we can circle a bunch of them out in an unincorporated pasture and make a silver commune.
