86 | August• 2017
AT HOME TOGETHER
to show themselves outside of their
illness and something like living mod-
els provides an opportunity not only
to socialise but to change attitudes
and ideas – to pass their experience
and knowledge to a new generation.”
Gea already knew that seniors enjoy
health benefits when they are with
younger people, from a reduced risk
of dementia to better blood pressure,
and it struck her that she was con-
stantly reading stories about students
struggling to make ends meet while at
university.
She thought,Why not marry the
two?She was in the business of hap-
piness, so why not create a rich envi-
ronment here at Humanitas with the
seniors and students who had been
interviewed and thoroughly screened?
When she proposed it to the
residence’s board members, they
thought she had gone mad. “To them,
the very idea of students, with their
sex, drugs and rock and roll, living
among seniors was crazy,” she said.
But Gea persevered, finally per-
suading the board to agree to one stu-
dent living in the residence on a trial
basis for half a year before it rejected
the proposal outright. In return for
free room and board, the student
would have to be a ‘good neighbour’
at all times and interact with the
residents for at least 30 hours each
month, from serving meals to helping
with computers or just opening a
bottleofwine–aseemingly simple
task unless you have arthritic fingers.seniors’ residence in Deventer, a city
of fewer than 100,000 in the heart of
the Netherlands.
Back in December 2012, Gea was
looking for a cost-effective way to
both enhance the residents’ lives and
fill rooms empty due to fewer govern-
ment subsidies to fill them. She was
well aware of numerous studies in the
European Union, Canada and the US
that found evidence linking isolation
and loneliness to physical illness and
cognitive decline. A 2014 report by
the National Seniors Council (NSC)
in Canada, for example, found that up
to 44 per cent of seniors living in resi-
dential care had been diagnosed with
depression or showed symptoms of it,
while men over the age of 80 had the
highest suicide rate of all age groups.
“Social isolation isn’t just an indi-
vidual issue,” says Tamara Sussman,
an associate professor of social work
at McGill University in Montreal who
was a consultant for the NSC report.
“Seniors often don’t have opportunities
“IUSEDTOFEELSORRY
FORTHEELDERLY
BECAUSETHEYAREN’T
ABLETODOALOT.
NOWISEEWHAT
THEYCANDO”
SORES DUMAN,student