Hans Becker sharing his views on Apartments for Life

The Dutch ‘father’ of the Apartments for Life model has lent his support to an Australian project based on his ideas.

Hans Becker is in the country on a week-long tour as a guest of the Benevolent Society, which plans to replicate his internationally acclaimed model in Sydney's eastern suburbs.

The Chairman of the Humanitas Foundation in Rotterdam developed the Apartments for Life model around the concept that older people should be able to remain happy.

“Everyone has other needs apart from their medical and psychological needs,” said Mr Becker.

“There is nothing wrong with the ‘cure and care’ approach but you need to have more than that to be happy.”

Under the Humanitas philosophy, older residents live in their own apartments where they are able to receive personal care and nursing support as their needs increase.

They are encouraged to remain active and independent and are supported by staff as family members.

“Before it was like this: a person would live in their own house until they became a little ill and they would move into [hostel-type] care and then if they became ill again, they would enter a nursing home,” said Mr Becker.

“Now you don’t have to move. Under this model, you can stay within the same apartment – even with physical handicaps as you get older.”

The apartments are built above common, sheltered village squares where residents are encouraged to mix with each other, and members of the public, in restaurants, bars, internet cafes and museums.

It is a model that impressed the Benevolent Society’s General Manager of Aged Care, Barbara Squires, when she visited the Humanitas apartments in Rotterdam.

“In the village square on the ground floor, there were workers from the local neighbourhood who were coming in to the restaurant to have their lunch,” she said.

“Nowhere in Australia would you hear someone say ‘let’s go the nursing home for lunch’!”

But this is something Ms Squires hopes to change. The Benevolent Society has spent two years investigating the model and believes it is a concept that could be adopted across Australia.

The organisation is currently seeking approval from Waverley Council for a $64 million, Apartments for Life development in Bondi – an identified area of need.

Forty per cent of the 127 apartments will be set aside for people on low to moderate incomes with limited savings and assets. The remaining residents will pay market price for their apartments.

“The growing number of older people being locked out of affordable accommodation which is suitable for later life already represents a silent epidemic,” said Ms Squires.“That number is set to grow in the coming years due to a decline in home ownership, reduced investment in public housing and the ageing of the population.”

All of the care in the Bondi development will be delivered into the apartments as community care under the supervision of a full time care coordinator.

“There will be no residential aged care facility within the development because we want to keep the housing side separate from the care side,” said Ms Squires.

“We are quite confident that 95 per cent of the people who enter an apartment at Bondi will be able to end their life in the same apartment.”