‘Apartments for life’ is becoming a familiar term in Australia, as the work of the Humanitas Foundation in The Netherlands becomes better known. The Benevolent Society has based its Apartments for Life at Ocean Street project on the work of Humanitas.
Read all about Apartments for Life in The Netherlands and what it may offer for Australia.
Background
15 years ago, Dutch older people started demanding an alternative to old style nursing homes and hostels. They wanted to be able to go on living independently and stay part of their long time local community even when their health declined and they could no longer get around as they used to.
Apartments for Life is an innovative response to this challenge, pioneered by the Humanitas Foundation in Rotterdam the mid 1990s. Having begun with 350 apartments in three complexes in 1995 and now has 15 complexes holding 1,700 apartments, covering some 2,550 residents. It offers a new approach to housing and care for older people.
Dr Hans Becker, CEO of the Humanitas Foundation, is the driving force behind Apartments for Life. He is a Professor of Humanising of Care at Utrecht University and an Instructor in Executive Education at Harvard University.
Human happiness – not ‘cure and care’
Dr Becker says “Human happiness - that is the business we are in, not ‘cure and care’. There is not much to cure when someone has Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s, or even arthritis in the knees. The care elements have to be there, but they should be in the background”.
The Apartments for Life philosophy has four basic values:
- Boss of your own life
- Use it or lose it
- Extended family approach
- A yes culture
The Humanitas approach is that residents should be the boss of their own life, with their own front door so they are truly a resident, not just ‘staying’ in a room that belongs to an institution.
Versatile living in 'age proof' dwellings
The Humanitas model for Apartments for Life includes carefully designed apartment complexes, lived in and partly run by independent older people, and offering services on a needs basis. These include medical, daily care, recreational, educational and social, up to and including nursing home type care.
Humanitas has separated the care side of the organisation from the housing side. They have not built a nursing home for many years, and has demolished some that were sitting empty as Rotterdam’s older people chose to move into ‘age proof’ apartments with features such as variable height sinks and wide doorways.
People are free to organise care services from other organisations if they wish. An important principle is blending people, so at least one third of residents do not have any care needs. Residents can have a variety of arrangements for housing, from low rent social housing, through to renting or buying large and expensive apartments at market prices. Humanitas now has 15 ‘apartments for life’ complexes, with more planned.
Dr Becker says “To be a person amongst people, you need to meet people, mingle, share something – dine in the café, eat apple pie, or have a drink in the bar, go to the hairdresser, the pedicure or the beauty parlour, visit the animal garden with the grandchildren, sculpture garden, play bridge together, participate in volunteer work. The attention needs to be taken away from people’s handicaps and instead focus attention on what people can do and what they enjoy. Constant focus on medical problems will cause what is left of a positive image of life to disappear, and institutions for the elderly will degenerate into what my father calls misery islands.”