New proposals for seniors’ residences

Seniors are very attached to their homes. They have watched their family growing up there and have experienced some moving moments with friends. Naturally they want to stay in their homes as long as possible. When the time comes to move to a place with care and services adapted to their condition, they are rather reluctant to do so. Those who live in the countryside particularly do not want to move to the city, let alone stay in the large residences that we are familiar with today. However, there are alternatives to these traditional residences.

Professor-researcher Suzanne Garon, of the Faculty of Humanities at the Université de Sherbrooke and the Center for Research on Aging (CDRV) of the CIUSSS de l'estrie - CHUS, and her team have developed an information and awareness package to educate municipalities and local developers on the different types of seniors' housing that allow seniors to age in a place where they can remain as independent as possible.

"The aging of a large section of the population is fast approaching and municipalities have not had the time to adapt their residences to this situation," Garon explains. “When we think of seniors' residences, we think of urban residences that can accommodate a very large number of people, which does not lead to the happiness of everyone.”

"Most often, rural seniors want to stay in their small village,” says researcher Christyne Lavoie.”they know everybody and know where the grocery store is. They do not want to be uprooted." The Seniors' Housing Information and Awareness Booklet that the team has produced has two main objectives: to propose housing models different from those we are currently familiar with and to equip cities and municipalities that would like to build these types of dwellings. "It is an accelerator to allow cities to adapt more quickly to the aging of their populations," Lavoie adds.

The booklet, written in collaboration with the Carrefour action municipale et famille, is the result of a research project led by Prof. Garon and her team in 2016. It is available online at http://carrefourmunicipal.qc. Ca / wp-content / uploads / 2015/07 / guidehabitation_revision19avril.pdf.