Building Affordable Rental Housing for Seniors: Policy Insights From Canada

ABSTRACT

In the context of healthy aging, we explore newly constructed, unassisted affordable rental housing with respect to design, location, and the involvement of seniors in decision making. We do so from the perspectives of seniors and project sponsors. Overall, the themes that emerged from these two groups of participants diverge. Seniors spoke about the importance of shared space, design-related barriers to aging in place, and problems accessing transportation. They also expressed a range of views regarding participation in decision making, from conveying it was not necessary to requesting resident involvement. Project sponsors spoke about cost, feasibility, and, in certain cases, learning how to build housing; they also evinced disparate views about the nature of the housing they were providing and the importance of seniors' involvement. Recommendations include linking housing to health and social policy, implementing guidelines for sponsors related to design and location, and providing increased funding to offset new costs.

KEYWORDS:

• Canada
• policy
• affordable housing
• aging in place

Notes

1 By “unassisted,” we mean that on-site supports are not provided. However, this housing is financially assisted.

2 Units were built during the second phase of the AHI. Details of this program are the same as the current IAH program. Specifically, in Nova Scotia, project sponsors receive forgivable loans to a maximum of $25,000 per unit, created on condition that the housing stay affordable for a minimum period of time. In addition, the province contributes up to $25,000 in rental supplements for each new unit and disburses this amount over a 10-year period.

3 Although we use the terms sponsoring organizations and project sponsors, one of the projects was built, and is managed, by a housing developer. The two others managed the predevelopment and development of their projects, but did not build the housing.

4 Four units in each development are barrier-free. This is a provincial government requirement.

5 While the most common type of housing cooperative in Canada features resident-controlled governance (Cole, 2008), multistakeholder cooperatives feature residents and community members on the board (Confédération québécoise des coopératives d'habitation, 2013). The cooperative in this study is multistakeholder.