Washington ? Weaver Shepperson has been blind for nearly 50 years. He’s lived alone since his wife died in 1999 and needs transportation several times a month to visit his doctors.

Yet he doesn’t plan to move out of the rowhouse in Washington’s historic Capitol Hill neighborhood where he’s lived since 1955.

The 80-year-old is part of a burgeoning movement among senior citizens determined to stay in their homes as long as possible. With the help of nonprofit groups known as “villages,” they’re enjoying many of the perks that residents of retirement or assisted-living communities receive, at a fraction of the cost.

Shepperson pays $530 annually for membership in Capitol Hill Village. It enables him to receive a ride to the doctor’s office from the village’s network of volunteers. The village also takes care of his grocery shopping. Without it, he says he might have had to move into assisted living.

Capitol Hill Village is one of the oldest and most robust of the roughly 65 active villages nationwide. It’s been around four years and has more than 350 members.

While the village movement is gaining momentum, it’s an option unavailable to the vast majority of elderly Americans. There also are questions about the long-term viability of the organizations.

The desire of Americans to live at home instead of moving into retirement or assisted-living communities — known as “aging in place” — has always been strong. AARP surveys consistently show that nearly 90 percent of people 65 and older want to stay in their homes as long as possible.

But what if you have to stop driving? Or can’t change light bulbs, maintain the yard or get into the attic? For most people, there are few options beyond relying on relatives or neighbors. This was the dilemma that led a group of friends in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood to create the village concept. Beacon Hill Village began accepting members in 2002; Capitol Hill Village was one of the first to successfully duplicate the model.

In addition to rides and other favors that volunteers can provide, most villages offer what they call a “concierge service” — a connection to a list of pre-screened vendors who can provide discounted services such as plumbing or home repair.

About half of the nation’s villages are concentrated in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. Between 10,000 and 13,000 people are members, according to the Village-to-Village Network, which tracks and coordinates villages around the country. The Washington area is a hotbed for villages, with five within the District of Columbia and three more in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs.

Those statistics, though, underscore the limitations of the village concept: Most are located in densely populated, relatively affluent urban or suburban communities. Their members are also overwhelmingly white — more than 90 percent, according to a survey by the University of California, Berkeley.