88 | August• 2017
AT HOME TOGETHER
studio apartment with a kitchenette
and bathroom. In turn, they would
bring their vitality and different per-
spectives to seniors who could be
marginalised by their health condi-
tions and living situations. There
would be no hard and fast rules but
rather an undertaking that the young
people spend time with their neigh-
bours, no matter if it was over a cup
of coffee or an outing in a nearby park.
And Rudolf Seniors’ Home – a
series of white concrete, low-rise
buildings surrounded by trees in the
east end of the city – was the perfect
place to start because the physical
structure, with lots of stairs and
long hallways, was difficult for some
seniors to navigate, thus leaving a
number of apartments vacant.
At first his colleagues, too, were
sceptical. Wasn’t such a programme
asking for trouble? How would the
young people deal with things such
as finding a senior unconscious, or
dead? What about parties, loud music
and smoking?
“Let’s try it – just a few students at
first who are interested in bridging
that gap,” Miki suggested. “We have
nothing to lose.”
In November 2015 a Facebook post
asking for applications resulted in 312
responses. Miki and a panel of experts
that included a seniors’ representa-
tive from Rudolf Seniors’ Home whit-
tled down the applicants to 22 young
people who went through in-depth
interviews and wrote short essayseverything slows down when you walk
in here. I used to feel sorry for the
elderly because they aren’t able to
do a lot of things. Now, I look at them
and see what they can do.”
WHEN MIKI MIELONEN,aproject
manager in Helsinki’s Youth Depart-
ment, heard of the Humanitas pro-
gramme, he thought,Why not here?
For him, youth homelessness was the
immediate problem. The numbers
told the story: in 2015, more than 1000
people between the ages of 18 and 25
were without a permanent home in
the city, drifting from one couch to
another, trying to study or work. Why
not take some of the empty apart-
ments in retirement homes and charge
a small amount of rent to young peo-
ple in return for spending time with
the seniors? “We can tweak the idea to
suit our needs,” he told his colleagues.
“We needn’t limit it to students.”
It was a win-win, he said. The young
people would pay a modest rent for a
“I’M MORE OPEN.
JONAHASINSPIREDME
TOGETOUTOFMY
ROOMANDTALK
TOPEOPLE,
YOUNGANDOLD”
TAIMI TASKINEN,senior