I do love a good solution to a difficult problem and never more than when there is a win-win outcome for all involved.
I was recently reading a story in the Irish newspaper, The Journal, about a program in the Netherlands where university students get to live rent free in aged care homes in exchange for providing company, and sometimes other assistance, to the elderly residents.
It’s not the first time I have heard of older people and students striking deals around an exchange of accommodation for companionship and assistance with chores – but most of these involve people living in their own homes in the community. There are several programs around the country and indeed around the world which provide matching services based on this model (see some of the links below). Incidentally, I think it is a great model and needs to be more widely provided and promoted.
But this one is a bit different in that it involves the student living in the care home. The Netherlands aged care system is a bit different to ours in the way it is structured and also the kinds of buildings that are the ‘homes’ (mostly self-contained apartment style accommodation). But it is the concept that counts here.
At Humanitas Deventer, there are six students living in the home, each with their own self-contained apartment. In exchange for not paying any rent, they spend at least 30 hours a month with some of the 160 residents of the home – mostly just ‘hanging out’ with them, talking, playing games, reading, taking them shopping etc. It’s the things that the professional care staff don’t generally have enough time to do.
Another ‘experiment’, this time in the city of Cleveland in Ohio in the US (a seniors centre called Judson Manor – watch a short video here), offers free apartments to two music students from the nearby Cleveland Institute of Music in exchange for a monthly recital. The students rehearse in the public space too so the building is frequently filled with music.
Making good sense
I think all this makes a lot of sense and not just for the practical reasons. Sure it’s great for students who often struggle finding good, affordable accommodation and it’s a huge help for the elderly residents of the home who often struggle with getting out and about as much as they would like or finding someone who has time to share a game, help them to learn something new, or just to chat to over a coffee.
The less tangible but, in my view, equally important element is the busting up of the age ghettos. The young people, who are allowed to bring friends and partners into the home, actually get to know older people as other ‘people’ – friends and neighbours with textured lives and interesting histories. Likewise, the older people get to know and better understand the young students’ worlds. It’s hugely beneficial in breaking down the stereotypes that different generations can hold and fostering better mutual understanding.
I remember many years ago now, hearing about a couple of Australian retirement village and aged care service operators that were looking to convert some of their older buildings into heavily subsidised student housing or general affordable housing in a similar approach to this one in the Netherlands. As I recall, changes to building certification requirements for aged care buildings meant that a lot of otherwise perfectly functional buildings were otherwise facing demolition or substantial refurbishment to meet the new regulations.
The thinking was that these buildings could be made available to students or other people seeking low cost housing, in exchange for their doing a certain number of hours of voluntary ‘work’ of some form. I think there was also the idea that it might be attractive to some care workers to be living on-site. Naturally there are considerations and complications that need to be part of any kind of plan along these lines but, assuming they are all surmountable concerns, the idea just makes a lot of sense.
Sometimes really good solutions are right under our noses, if only we knew how to see them.
Disruption ahead?
Sometimes there are ideas and solutions to perennial problems that don’t necessarily involve huge costs but rather a shift in the way we think about them and respond to them. Sometimes really good solutions are right under our noses, if only we knew how to see them.
I don’t know what, if anything happened with these initiatives I remember hearing about. It was in the early days of the first Rudd Government when the National Rental Affordability Scheme was first introduced. But it struck me then that it made a lot of sense and it still does today.
Australia has a severe shortage of affordable housing and concepts like this could contribute one little part of the solution. And there are the other benefits of intergenerational relationship building and general community cohesion that can be a real bonus for the whole society.
Why not, when building or refurbishing a retirement village or aged care home, make some accommodation options available for students or other people? Cafes, health services and leisure facilities like swimming pools and gyms in many new aged care services are already open to the wider community with great benefits for all.
And why don’t we see more of the homeshare idea in our general community? How many older people living alone in large homes would benefit from having a student or someone who needs affordable accommodation around the house to keep company and help with maintenance and chores. It wouldn’t work for everyone but it could be terrific for some.
One of the buzz words we keep hearing at the moment is ‘disruption’ – that concept of an innovation coming along to not just augment or improve a market, industry, system or technology but to totally uproot and transform it. Think of AirBNB and Uber for example or going way back, the mass production of the motor car.
At a time when there is such a demand for affordable housing; when students face escalating costs for their education; when loneliness and social isolation is a widely acknowledged social and health issue for older people; where boredom and helplessness is said to be rampant in residential aged care facilities; a little disruption might be just the ticket. Bring on the creative responses, I say.
Do you know of any interesting initiatives that solve some of challenges that face people as they grow older? We need to share this conversation.
Links to explore:
http://homeshare.org/
http://homeshare.org.au/
