Ask most seniors and you will likely hear a variation of this answer: yes, we do want to keep living in the home we love as long as possible, near our friends, family and favourite places to visit. No! We don’t want to go to a retirement home or a long-term care facility.
That’s the message seniors advocates are taking to the Ontario, municipal and federal governments.
And it is being heard. York Region will be including input from a grass-roots group, the Committee for an Age-Friendly Markham (CFAFM), as it updates its six-year-old York Region Seniors Strategy this summer.
And recently, Mike Schreiner, leader of the Ontario Greens was the first party leader to sign the Accessible Housing Pledge launched by the AH Network, which aims to make all new housing accessible to the 24% of Ontarians with disabilities, many of them seniors coping with more than one disability.
“Ontario Greens are fully committed to mandating universal design to ensure that all new housing is accessible for all and suitable for aging in place,” Mr. Schreiner said.
This is something the CFAFM is very passionate about. They want to see changes to the Ontario Building Code to ensure that there are no barriers to anyone getting into and out of their homes and getting around comfortably inside. CFAFM members note that for seniors accessibility is more important than affordability, currently such a prominent issue for so many Canadians.
But there’s a lot of work for seniors advocates to do on several fronts.
Dr. Salvatore Amenta constantly asks politicians and officials of all stripes, “Why are so many beds and budgets being earmarked for long-term care when over 90 per cent of seniors surveyed want to stay in their own homes as long as possible?”
The Stouffville resident is a member of both the CFAFM as well as Seniors for Social Action Ontario (SSAO), a hundreds-strong group of seniors who are asking the Ontario government to offer seniors alternatives to nursing homes. SSAO wants to see some of the $6.4 billion pledged for over 30,000 long-term care beds diverted to making more houses and apartments easily accessible. And it wants alternatives to include more smaller community-based housing and more and better home care.
“We don’t institutionalize anyone except old people and prisoners,” stated Andy Langer, a co-founder and chair of the Committee for an Age-Friendly Markham.
In only four years, the first of the love-beads-and-peace-symbols generation will turn 80. Around seven million of the 38 million people in Canada are over 65 now; over three million more are projected to join them by 2037.
This “silver tsunami,” as Mr. Amenta describes them, is largely driven by the baby boomers born between 1946 and 1965.
With health services already under strain, seniors’ desire for more and better alternatives has become particularly poignant after older, frail people were made sicker and died in frighteningly large numbers in long-term care facilities due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ironically, according to the recent Ageing Well report from Queen’s University, a substantial number of “between one-in-nine and one-in-five seniors in LTC facilities could do well with home care, a living arrangement that would suit them better and be a lot less expensive for them and society.”
“Community-based services have long been available for and successfully provided to people with disabilities,” said Mr. Amenta, who has championed support for caregivers and persons with intellectual disabilities for decades.
Hoping to see changes soon, the CFAFM first brought its detailed proposals to Markham Council in 2019 and to a workshop last fall. These include designating at least 10 per cent of new houses and condos as “Always Homes” in Markham and York Region for barrier-free living now or with spaces allocated allowing for the addition of such things as elevators or chair glides later.
“Sometimes it’s just a matter of small things like making a doorway or hall four inches wider to allow for a wheelchair, an outside ramp instead of stairs, lower kitchen counters and walk-in showers,” said Mr. Amenta.
Such changes have already been happening since 2003 in Saanich, B. C., using the concept of ‘visitability’, where these homes are accessible to everyone. Using a combination of mandated and voluntary measures, officials there are looking ahead 30 years to when the number of seniors 65 and over will double, comprising almost one-third of the population.
“If these features are not designed and built in, then they become huge barriers to staying at home,” Mr. Langer said, whereas “they incur little or no additional cost” if they are built at the outset.
The CFAFM wants to see them become part of the Planning Act and building codes which developers would be obligated to follow. The committee also outlined ideas for achieving more choice in seniors’ housing through using regulated secondary suites, coach houses and smaller communal settings. Mixed-use communities could be created where diverse groups such as university students and seniors, for instance, could live side by side. Land could be freed up for housing and places like palliative care hospices by building them over a small portion of municipally-owned parking lots.
“It is very important for York Region to take a leading role for development of residential hospices,” stated Markham and York Region Councillor Jack Heath in an interview, adding, “…York Region should be assisting in finding land and assisting with the project to build the hospice.” Markham’s 350,000 population requires 29 palliative care residential beds and there should be 100 for York Region, up from the current 23, he said.
But to allow our elders to live in dignity and with emotional support will require the province to dramatically increase, regulate and fund good-quality home care.
“Home-care workers look after a million people in Ontario every year,” wrote Home Care Ontario CEO Sue VanderBent on the Ontario Medical Association’s website. “That’s massive. More than 90 per cent of people want to live in their homes and receive care in their homes as they age. But there has been very little attention paid to the home-care system by successive governments.” (www.choosehomecare.ca)
In addition to this, about 150,000 Ontarians end up paying out of their own pockets for additional private help each year.
As well as assisting seniors with personal and medical needs, services such as snow shovelling and windrow clearing are vital, say CFAFM advocates.
The Committee for an Age-Friendly Markham’s presentations were timely, noted Councillor Heath, as York Region updates its Seniors Strategy.
The CFAFM is also urging everyone to advocate for themselves by voting. In the lead-up to the Ontario election, they are encouraging people to tell their local candidates what they want and need and ask those candidates where they stand on seniors issues.
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