Features
Health
Wellness
More Canadian seniors moving to suburbs: study
Twice a week, Alphons Evers sets aside a few hours to work the phone, matching up his roster of volunteer drivers with clients who need a lift. Although the free service is geared towards those receiving cancer treatment, often times Evers says he'll get calls from seniors who simply need help getting around.
It's a request that could become more common, with new research
suggesting more and more Canadians are choosing to move to the
car-dependent suburbs in their golden years.
December 2, 2014 By Benjamin Shingler The Canadian Press
“Some people live on their own, and they don’t have anyone to help
them,” said Evers, a volunteer co-ordinator at NOVA West Island, a
community health organization serving the suburbs of Montreal’s West
Island.
Even if the condos popping up in urban centres may seem a perfect fit
for retirees, Canadians 65-and-over are increasingly going outside the
city, according to a study from Concordia University.
Zachary
Patterson, a professor in Concordia’s department of geography, planning
and environment, said the findings could mean difficulties ahead.
“Seniors
who live downtown will be able to access services that they need
without having to use automobiles,” Patterson said in an interview.
“In
the suburbs, if you lose your licence you may not be able to access the
services you need. The challenge is to provide services to people in
spread out areas – to people who haven’t got access to automobiles.”
The
Concordia study, which was pulled from Statistics Canada census data
between 1991 and 2006, tracks seniors’ moving habits in Canada’s six
largest metropolitan areas: Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton
and Vancouver.
Across the board, Patterson found the rate at
which seniors are moving to the suburbs appears to be increasing faster
than for all other age groups.
Montreal’s West Island in
particular is expected to get older, both due to an aging population and
the arrival of new seniors. By 2018, the number of those 65 and older
will climb to 42,000, up from 29,000 in 2012, presenting a host of new
problems.
Helene McGregor, who heads a seniors’ advocacy program
in the area, said transportation is a constant issue, especially for
those who lose their driver’s licences.
Paid services are available, she said, “but not everybody wants to spend the money. And not everyone has the money to spend.”
Although
the study didn’t look in depth at the causes of the shift, or whether
it’s likely to continue, Patterson does offer one possible reason: an
increase in the number of new, affordable apartment residences in the
suburbs, where downsizing seniors tend to move.
Regardless, the demographic shift has planners and health-care workers looking to adapt to the new system.
Marie-France
Juneau, executive director of NOVA West Island, sits on a committee
that aims to make municipalities more easily accessible to seniors.
“A
concrete example would be to add extra park benches, more lighting,
stop lights that give people more time to cross the street,” Juneau
said, adding that more complex issues, like access of health services
and transportation, also need to be addressed.
“I think it’s something many municipalities need. The demographics are calling for it.”
Print this page
