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Health and housing hand-in-hand for aging-in-place

intergenerational housing, denmark, aging in place
Intergenerational housing and neighbourhood in Denmark (artist's rendering).
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Thursday April 13, 2023 | LANGFORD, BC

by Mary P Brooke, B.Sc. | Island Social Trends


The well-being of seniors as they age goes hand in hand with health and housing supports.

Caring for older seniors seems to start with responsibilities of health leadership in government — as in providing home care supports for seniors living independently in the community and providing institutional long-term care spaces when that is needed.

health minister, adrian dix, jean-yves duclos
BC Health Minister Adrian Dix (left) and federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos in Vancouver, April 12, 2023. [livestream]

As well, enabling young adults to build careers while working from home would make them more available to attending to community needs during the day, something that could be supported with government funding or tax credits.

During a media session at Vancouver General Hospital yesterday about investments to strengthen public health care across Canada, federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos and BC Health Minister Adrian Dix supported this overall approach.

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A cross-ministry approach with housing will be part of a future direction, as part of recognizing the better overall health outcomes for older seniors who can continue to live in their own homes or with family or friends in community.

The modern economy and range of lifestyle options means that immediate family are not always around when their parents or grandparents are aging.

Yesterday Minister Dix said: “Over the years, the connections between the young people and the seniors have developed to the point of becoming an integral part of their daily routine, over and above the program’s established parameters. The process helps breaks the isolation that seniors often face while exposing young people to seniors’ wealth of knowledge, wisdom and experience,” it is stated in the program profile.

New community structures & programs:

New directions in community development and support programs can enable seniors (especially those who are low-income) to remain in their homes longer, helps break their isolation, and promotes involvement in the community, employment for young people, and inter-generational connections.

senior, yard work
Young adults can help aging-in-place seniors with yard work as part of a social experience.

In some Scandinavian countries there is an approach to designing neighbourhoods where housing units for seniors are integrated with housing for young families and working professionals. Knitting communities together this way offers the opportunities for social interaction that is healthy for all ages but also facilitates government supports which enable close-at-hand supports for seniors in addition to direct health-care services.

A program in Quebec back in the mid-1980s created a strong, diversified network which has become the hub for a range of services provided by the Quebec government’s social, health and security services and many community organizations.

Aging in place is “absolutely” part of the BC plan around supporting the aging population in BC, said Dix yeserday. “It will require much more than just health care. In cities such as Vancouver we need communities with a growing population of seniors which are more open to seniors living.”

adrian dix, health minister
BC Health Minister Adrian Dix in Vancouver, April 13, 2023.

“So that requires the full spectrum of supports and services. Some of which are health care in the sense that the Ministry of Health is involved in them, all of them about people’s health,” said Health Minister Dix.

Expanding long-term care, assisted living and home care:

“We need to expand long-term care, assisted living, home care and home support, and mental health service related to seniors. and dealing with the fact that many people need to live in a place and need supports to do that,” said Dix who has been health minister since mid-2017 (first appointed under Premier John Horgan, and kept firmly in place when Premier David Eby set his new Cabinet in December 2022).

“The one thing covered by this agreement which changed after the COVID — which experienced (expansion) was the adult day program. After 2020 we had to cancel these programs and they’re now building up again,” said Dix about the impact of the pandemic restrictions on the broader social supports for seniors.

Building seniors housing:

“In addition to that, there’s the issue of access to housing — the way we build senior’s housing, is typically in our care setting those have been a few stories – those constructions – take a look at Providence Health Care at st Vincent we’re going to have to go up (more building height) in a number of places and change the way that we do that. It’s a commitment that we need to make as our society’s changing and in the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Dix at the microphone with Minister Duclos there in Vancouver.

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Dix explored a bit further: “Those programs allow people to live in community, or in different circumstances after their community of friends may have died.” The critical aspect of having adult day programs and engagement for people in communities is about living in a time when we don’t all live together as families.

As a senior government minister Dix said: “Some of it is about health care and some of it is about broader housing questions. Both are significant priorities for ourselves and for the federal government.”

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===== LINKS:

Active Aging Canada

Age-Friendly World (World Health Organization)

Aging in Place – HealthLink BC

Cooperative Housing Federation of BC

district of sooke, budget

===== ABOUT THE WRITER & ISLAND SOCIAL TRENDS:

Mary Brooke, editor, West Shore Voice News
Mary P Brooke, Editor and Publisher, Island Social Trends.

Mary P Brooke is the editor and publisher of Island Social Trends as published daily at islandsocialtrends.ca.

She has been covering politics, business, education and communities through a socioeconomic lens since 2008 on south Vancouver Island (previously as West Shore Voice News, and before that both Sooke Voice News and MapleLine Magazine).

Ms Brooke followed and wrote extensively about the COVID pandemic during 2020-2022, and continues to follow the topic as new developments arise. She has covered Sooke School District 62 (SD62) in depth since 2014. Mary P Brooke reports with the BC Legislative Press Gallery.

Among other qualifications, Ms Brooke holds a health sciences B.Sc., a university Certificate in Public Relations, and an industry certificate in digital marketing. In the 1990s she was a cofounder of the Professional Editors Association of Vancouver Island and wrote the curriculum for the Writing for Business and Journalism Program in Victoria, BC.