If this is what aging looks like, bring it
POSTMEDIA IS TAKING AN IN-DEPTH LOOK AT THE SOCIAL, INSTITUTIONAL AND ECONOMIC ISSUES THE PANDEMIC HAS BROUGHT TO LIGHT — AND, MORE IMPORTANTLY, HOW WE CAN SOLVE THEM.
When Jay Westman decided to embark on a landmark development that would transform how Canadians view their options for aging, people told him it couldn't be done.
“There were a lot of naysayers,” says Westman, chairman and CEO of Jayman BUILT, one of Alberta's largest home builders.
“Everybody said it won't work, to build an entire community — an urban village in suburban Calgary — focusing on empty nesters with all of the amenities you can think of and commercial retail and restaurants that would be a draw and destination for the entire city.”
That development now includes 862 homes — rental apartments with up to 10-year leases, condos, estate condos and buildings for adult living, as well as medically assisted senior care accommodations, ranging from assisted living to full nursing and memory care, all situated on the shores of Calgary's largest man-made lake — 25-hectare Lake Mahogany.
During a real estate lull in economically depressed Calgary, Westman Village has nearly sold out and those naysayers have gone quiet. Indeed, developers from across North America have been visiting this walkable community, with more than one kilometre of fountains, shops and restaurants, to see if they can replicate it, since all of North America can expect the percentage of seniors to balloon as the baby boomer generation heads into old age.
The National Institute on Ageing (NIA) at Ryerson University in Toronto says that over the next 30 years, the number of Canadians over the age of 85 will more than triple — from 844,000 in 2019 to 2.63 million by 2049.
The catastrophe that has occurred in Canada's longterm care homes throughout the COVID-19 pandemic has focused the attention of policy-makers and voters on how we care for our seniors.
Boomers — that enormous postwar generation born between 1946 and 1964 — have grown accustomed to changing the world, not just by their generation's size, but because they know that when they demand change, such as pushing for gender equality in the '60s and '70s, positive change happens.
Ito Peng, the Canada Research Chair in Global Social Policy and a professor of sociology at the University of Toronto, says boomers will not accept moving from their homes to sharing a room and a bathroom with up to three strangers, as happens in some of Canada's older long-term care homes.
“Boomers are a very fortunate demographic group that really benefited from the postwar economic boom, so they're actually, in general terms, pretty wealthy,” says Peng.
“They're more accustomed to a certain standard of living that many of their parents didn't always experience, so I can imagine that the baby boom generation will have very different expectations than their parents and grandparents did. They're expecting to spend their assets to ensure that their golden years are as comfortable and fulfilling as possible.”
Boomers, however, had fewer children than previous generations, so by 2050,
while there will be about 120 per cent more people using home care support, that will be done with 30 per cent fewer close family members to help, says Bonnie-jeanne Macdonald, director of financial security research with the National Institute on Ageing.
“If all unpaid hours of care inside the home were instead paid publicly, this would add $27 billion to public sector costs by 2050,” she said, quoting her October 2019 report The Future Cost of Long-term Care in Canada.
Westman says many of his home builder friends' parents are living at Westman Village and he anticipates he'll one day live there, too. The 63-year-old philanthropist points to the bar in Alvin's Jazz Club, named
after his father, Alvin Westman, saying he can picture himself sipping Scotch with buddies while listening to live music in their old age.
Right next door is Chairman's Steak House, which has become a destination restaurant for all of Calgary.
Westman says the idea of building a community that “abolishes winter” came from Ken King, who was on the Jayman BUILT board of directors. King was a former publisher of the Calgary Sun and the Calgary Herald before becoming the president and CEO of the Calgary Flames. He passed away from cancer last March.
“We thought initially, are we talking about heating the streets and sidewalks? And then we started to brainstorm about connectivity by using skyways or Plus-15s
(as they're called in Calgary) and the underground tunnel that connects 92 per cent of the community to the Village Centre, as well as the two-storey underground, heated parking garage.”
Instead of placing a few amenities in each building, he built a 40,000-squarefoot Village Centre with two swimming pools, a two-storey waterslide, a state-of-the art gym, a woodworking shop, a cooking demonstration room, a craft room with a pottery kiln, a golf simulator, a games room, a small library, a large gymnasium, a 50-seat movie theatre, a lush indoor garden and much more — all of which is free to residents of Westman Village. Residents and nonresidents can access other amenities for a fee, such as the hair salon, spa, spin studio,
the market place and espresso bar. All of the public areas are powered by solar panels on every roof of every building.
“I tell all people who live here, `You own this. You're the owner so enjoy it,'” says Westman.
Bill and Cheryl Hargreaves have taken that advice to heart.
“We went from our bungalow villa of 2,800 square feet to our two-bedroom condo of 1,113 square feet with a 100-square-foot balcony, but we can't really call it downsizing because we gained the 40,000 square-foot Village Centre with all of those amenities,” says Bill, 71, a retired chartered accountant.
Moving to Westman Village was mostly Cheryl's idea. In 2017, following two serious retina bleeds in both eyes, Cheryl was declared legally blind in her left eye and lost a lot of her vision in her right eye. She requires injections in both eyes every eight weeks to prevent further deterioration of her eyesight.
They wanted to move to a condo with a pool so it would be a draw for their five grandkids, aged three to 15, but never saw anything they really liked. Several friends from church had moved to Westman Village and loved it.
“There was an ad in the paper that said there would be no GST so I asked my accountant,” Cheryl says, playfully pointing towards Bill, “and he said it just might be doable.”
Their new condo, at $500,000, was more expensive than the home they sold, but Cheryl gave up on her dream of driving again, sold her SUV, and they no longer have to pay for their gym memberships, so they're actually spending less money.
“Our grandkids love it here. They keep asking when they can come for the next sleepover,” laughs Cheryl.
“When you talk to people who have moved here, most of them have suffered a loss,” reflects Cheryl. “So, loss may have brought us here, but being here is certainly not a loss. On the contrary, I would say moving here has enhanced our lives.”
Bill says just earlier in the day, after returning from a medical appointment, a young mother and her infant were waiting for the elevator.
“You don't feel like you're in a seniors' community because you're not,” explains Bill. “You've got all ages in here. You've got little kids, you've got puppy dogs galore. We have new friends in the building who are 35. It's a much more invigorating atmosphere than 70-yearolds looking at 80-year-olds.”
Glendyne Loewen, a 91-year-old former nurse, moved out of her Calgary bungalow villa into The Journey Club, the seniors' home at Westman Village, in October 2019 mostly because her daughters worried about her, after her husband, Gerry, passed away in 2014.
“We had looked around at other places, and some of them were nice, but the accommodations were really just a room and a bathroom with a bit of an institutional feel and who wants that?” asks Loewen. “Here, it feels like I'm living in a hotel suite rather than an institution. It feels like a resort.”
Loewen does five laps every day on the indoor walking track and frequently uses the gym with her friend, Anne Buchan, 86.
Buchan — who suffers from inclusion body myositis, a progressive muscle disorder characterized by muscle inflammation, weakness and atrophy — says her move to Westman Village saved her money. She was in another assisted living facility in Calgary that was more expensive and offered much less. Now she has a one-bedroom apartment with a full kitchen, in-suite laundry, a large walk-in shower and a spacious balcony. If her health further declines, she can age in place by purchasing more services.
All seniors communities can't be this grand, but a rising tide lifts all boats and the paradigm shift achieved at Westman Village will hopefully do the same for Canada's senior care in the years to come.