Hanging out with elderly ‘rent free’
A nursing home in the Netherlands is offering rent free housing to students in exchange for their assistance entertaining and socialising with elderly residents.
The Dutch project in the small town of Deventer aims to create a win-win scenario for both young and old with students earning their keep in small rent-free apartments by offering at least 30 hours per month engaging with their geriatric neighbours.
Humanitas Retirement Home is the social service organisation responsible for the initiative which started two years ago.
The students housed in the “intergenerational program” participate in a variety of activities with the 160 older residents including watching sports, celebrating birthdays and, perhaps most importantly staving off isolation when residents are unable to access the outside world easily.
“It’s important not to isolate the elderly from the outside world,” Gea Sijpkes, Humanitas' head tells PBS news.
“The students bring the outside world in, there is lots of warmth in the contact. When you’re 96 years old with a knee problem, well, the knee isn’t going to get any better… but what we can do is create an environment where you forget about the painful knee,” Ms Sijpkes says.
The students are allowed to come and go as they please as long as they are not a bother to the older residents.
Similar intergenerational living programs have been set up in Lyons, France and Cleveland, Ohio, according to the International Association of Homes and Services for the Ageing.
One program, established in Barcelona in the late 1990s, has proven so successful it has been replicated in more than 20 cities throughout Spain.
Despite an ageing population and constant demand for cheaper student housing there are reportedly no current similar programs active in Australia.
