The Social Settlements were started to serve and have served the neighborhood needs of the poor and the immigrant.
They have also, incidentally, demonstrated the financial advantages of cooeperative housekeeping.

A company of congenial people living together in groups of twenty to forty can secure the essentials of food, shelter, and necessary service at a cost per person far below the average expense for boarding or private housekeeping.

This does not mean that families can combine easily in multiple households.

The personal equation counts for its greatest influence in the real family group, of father, mother, and their children under eighteen years of age.

Few, if any, schemes of cooeperative housekeeping have as yet worked well for the combination of such groups.
The aged, especially the aged widow or widower, are not in the direct family group.