Cities need to plan now for wave of older adults

By Brad Honywill, Communications Coordinator – CHEC

Read the original publication here.  

Urgent action needs to start now to accommodate the rapidly aging population in the Greater Golden Horseshoe area of Ontario and other areas of Canada, McMaster University Professor of Health, Aging & Society, Jim Dunn told participants in a Nov. 15 webinar on Housing Policy, Health Policy and Aging Populations.

The webinar was co-sponsored by Cohousing Hamilton and Hamilton Aging in Community.
“There is a great deal of concern about the aging of the population and what it will mean for health services, long-term care facility capacity, etc.,” said Dunn, who is also Senator William McMaster Chair in Urban Health Equity at McMaster. “Relatively little in these discussions considers the importance of charting strategic future directions for housing, transportation and home-based supports.”

He said the number of people over the age of 80 In the Greater Golden Horseshoe will grow by roughly 700,000 additional people by 2041, “so the need to better coordinate housing and institutional care is urgent.”

“The big question is, in the future, where in our cities and in our communities will older people live so that they can their optimize independence and well-being for as long as possible,” Dunn told the webinar participants. “How much do we adapt new and existing urban infrastructure to the needs of an aging population? How do we do it at that scale?”

Dunn said the concept of co-housing fit into this broader, and “urgent,” context.

Hamilton Aging in Community is hosted by Aging Together, a group of community-minded individuals residing in the Hamilton area, “committed to learn and inform others about housing alternatives and other mutual support strategies for maturing adults and seniors.”

“We embrace our interdependence – to move past the North American focus on independence. We dream of a good old age of connections and mutual support – creating many options beyond the two established paths: aging in place in frailty (often isolated, without support) or moving into assisted care,” the group says on its website: https://hamiltonagingtogether.ca/printable-pdf/

Co-Housing Hamilton is on a mission to build a co-housing community in the Hamilton area by 2024 that will include different sized units and a culture that “fosters autonomy and privacy while cultivating neighbourly support and a deep sense of community.”

Learn more at: https://cohousinghamilton.ca/