In Niagara there are several options for retirement
communities. Planned communities, such as Heritage Village in Vineland,
offer homes that are designed with few about stairs, banks and convenience stores right in
the development, covered walkways, exercise rooms, and other amenities not in most normal
subdivisions.
On so-called Adult Life-Style
Communities:
"Community is not something we simply live in, it's what we feel. It has to be based on more than fun events for the elderly. It has to be real, offer an opportunity for contribution, and be truly supportive of social
and physical well-being."
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These communities are fairly new to Ontario. Arizona,
Florida, and other sun belt states have had these for years. The "Sun Cities" of
Phoenix are huge developments with security gates, and roads designed for the normal mode
of transportation, golf carts. Other less expensive developments offer "park
model" mobile homes.
Life lease housing falls
in this category.
The Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP) has an
excellent source, RetirementCanada,
which has many listings for retirement living for all of Canada.
Not everyone has the personal resources to retire to a purchased property.
Renting is also an option. This can be done locally in two ways.
The first is to living in what is being called a NORC or
"naturally occurring retirement community." I guess we
have to have acronyms for everything. Some rental apartment buildings can have a
predominance of seniors simply because they are within walking distance to shopping.
Another source for adult communities is government subsidized non-profit housing. There are many of the buildings across Ontario. In Niagara buildings most of the
buildings have elevators but do not provide an organized supportive service. |
