Housing Options for Older Canadians

Christine Hughes is a policy analyst with the Ontario Native Affairs
Secretariat.

This book provides practical advice to enable older people to make
informed decisions about what housing options are most appropriate for
them. Although Wilson has an engineering and planning background and has
taught in Simon Fraser’s geography department for 15 years, this book
is not written for an audience of housing planners or academics. One of
the most refreshing aspects of this book is Wilson’s personal writing
style and the illustrations drawn from his own housing needs as a
septuagenarian widower.

In his introduction, Wilson states that the book is meant to be a
“tool” to provide readers with the facts and principles necessary to
make a sound choice of housing for their old age. Chapter 1 focuses on
the individual needs, attitudes, preferences, and resources that
influence housing choice. Wilson argues that when evaluating housing
alternatives, older people consider affordability, secure tenure,
manageability, accessibility, and safety. In Chapter 2, Wilson discusses
three essential housing criteria: location, kind of housing, and money.
In the next eight chapters, various housing alternatives are examined in
terms of these criteria. Among the options reviewed are
“snowbirding,” recreational vehicles (RVs), home renovation, home
sharing, home buying and construction, mobile homes, retirement
communities, condominiums, renting, granny flats, room and board,
government-subsidized housing, co-operatives, and a range of supportive
housing. The concluding chapter summarizes the key factors influencing
housing selection and leaves the reader in a position to make decisions.

Wilson’s book contains much to recommend it to people considering
housing options for their later years. It is relatively inexpensive,
easy to read (due both to language style and to type size), and contains
16 useful worksheets to guide the reader through the process of deciding
where to live. For further information, 11 appendixes direct readers to
the addresses and phone numbers of provincial housing programs,
community services, agencies, and government offices across Canada. The
book lacks an index; however, there is a comprehensive table of contents
that includes appendixes, worksheets, figures, and tables. Finally,
although supplementary readings are suggested by Wilson throughout the
book, a separate bibliography would have been helpful. This book should
more than satisfy the needs of most readers seeking “how-to”
information on senior citizens’ housing alternatives in Canada.