I’ll see you and up the bid.
This article first appeared in the Minden Times and Haliburton Echo in August 2026.
To hell with modesty, we should more frequently celebrate the stuff we’re good at.
There’s a big whoopla in the housing and seniors’ world about NORCs – Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities. They tend to be apartment buildings in which many units are occupied by seniors who band together to negotiate with service providers for improved access to and quality of service.
They make an inarguable economic argument, the same one that supported housing makes, that it is much more efficient to provide service to people who live closely together than to those same people in scattered residences. They make less to-do about the extent to which the informal supports of neighbouring decrease the need for funded services. Who needs a friendly visitor when you’ve got friendly neighbours? Who needs volunteer drivers when you can barter cookies for a ride? Who needs wellness checks when you’ve got nosy neighbours?
I venture to say that if we attached an appropriate monetary value to those informal supports, their contribution to the GDP of the community would exceed that of many formal support organizations. Which is probably why we don’t routinely do that sort of thing. People who think they and their work have value tend to be difficult to keep in their proper place. We’ll have seniors organizing like a trade union if we let them get a fancy ideas.
But I doubt we could argue about the improvement in the quality of service such efficiency provided. The obvious is that more of paid workers’ time would be spent doing what they do rather than on the road.
But the other more important improvement is there would be more continuity and predictability of care: John’s 8 a.m. appointment to be up and dressed for the day is harder to miss if Mary’s 8:30 appointment and Esmerelda’s 9:00 appointment is just down the hall/street. And if it’s Wednesday, it’ll be PSW Susie for everyone. And if Susie doesn’t perform as well as Andrew who is the Thursday guy, there’s apt to be some encouragement for her to up her game, since obviously it’s possible.
But here’s where the let’s toot our horn part comes in: I think we do NORC-like stuff very well right here in River City (well, y’know). I was at a barrage of yard sales in Hunter Creek on a beautiful Saturday and everyone knew my friends were planning to move in. They were already being integrated into what is obviously a very meshed community. Plans were being made for how to include them – those who knew them were telling those who didn’t what they were good for and what to look out for.
The housing part of myself was also giving three thumbs up to the design and lay-out of the community. I’ve lived in pre-manufactured housing (aka an ATCO single-wide) in a trailer court (which was pretty awful) but also in a specialized trailer-only sub-division in which home-owners also owned their property (which was pretty good) – but neither held a candle to the thoughtfulness and obvious pride of place evident in Hunter Creek.
I think an important factor is the leasehold model, where people own their homes but not the land on which it sits. This makes it more affordable, but retains permission for people to be as creative as they wish about their property (large lots offer a generous canvas on which to paint). Provision of some common services lightens the physical load of being a property owner. Equals perfect for seniors, right? A petri dish for a NORC.
It’s not the only way to do it, and there are other well-functioning, unacknowledged NORCs in the County. Our real claim to fame is that we have such a choice, from Hunter Creek where you have a big yard, Silver Beach where you have bigger houses and smaller yards (and condo responsibilities), the two buildings beside the Catholic church in Minden (I’ve forgotten the developer’s name) where you have apartments, to The Gardens where you have around-the-clock staffing. And many others within that spectrum that I may not know about.
I say let’s strut our stuff on a bigger stage and let the world know how NORCs are done in rural areas. Who wants to join this advocacy group -- seniorsactionontario.com -- to spread the word?
