We spoke with Sarah O’Neil, author of Growing Vegetables: A Simple Guide for New Zealand Gardeners. She believes successful gardening starts with keeping things simple, and growing what you love to eat. In this interview, she shares practical advice for beginners, reveals which crops offer the best value for money, and suggests ways to adapt gardening for those with changing mobility needs.

Sarah also reflects on the deeper rewards of gardening, from staying active and learning a new skill, to connecting more with nature. Whether you have a large garden, a raised bed, or just a few pots on a balcony, her insights offer encouragement for anyone keen to grow their own food.

For someone new to vegetable gardening, what are the easiest crops to start with, and why?

The best vegetables to start with are the ones you like to eat! Starting from seedlings is much easier than starting from seed, but there is enjoyment in the care seeds require. Some can be quite low maintenance – like a beetroot, after it starts growing, it only needs weeding and watering and once it is between the size of a golf ball and a tennis ball, it is ready to eat. Growing a salad is also easy. Others can become tricky due to their constant need for attention, like tomatoes that need support as they grow, adjustments to improve air flow and constant monitoring for pests and diseases. It can almost be like pet ownership with some crops, but the act of gardening is just as rewarding as the harvest.

With the cost of groceries continuing to rise, can growing your own vegetables make a meaningful difference to the household budget? Which crops offer the best value?

Gardening doesn’t give you free food, and there is always an investment to be made, in your time, your efforts as well as your money. Growing from seed is always cheaper – a lettuce packet can have 1000 seeds and can last for several seasons. But seeds should be started in a quality seed raising mix for the best results so there is a start-up cost. So, it can be thought of as grocery shopping in advance. Plants that keep giving are always the best value – a zucchini or tomato will easily overwhelm you with abundance, but a cabbage will be done once harvested – and they can be quite cheap in the shop. Cut and come again salads are great because you only take what you need with no waste or wilting in the fridge.

What essential equipment does a beginner need to get started?

There are a lot of tools and gadgets available for the gardener, but if we are being honest, you don’t need most of them. A basic rake, fork, spade, trowel, secateurs, and a hose is a good starting point. But you get what you pay for so spend as much as you can afford. There are plenty of makeshift supplies you can upcycle or recycle for use in the garden, including old food containers for plant pots or cutlery makes a great set of hand tools.

What vegetables grow well in smaller spaces, such as pots, raised beds or balconies?

Look for varieties that specifically suggest they are suitable for small spaces. Yates has a range of seeds for ‘small gardens’ made up with a wide range of vegetables that are compact, dwarf or don’t grow large. But you will still need to plan carefully. If space is limited you won’t be able to grow it all, so work out your why before you decide on your what. Always get containers as big as you can so the roots have the most soil available, but remember the plant is reliant on you for everything so water and feed regularly.

How can people adapt their gardening if bending, lifting kneeling, or moving around has become more difficult?

Raised beds are always better for mobility issues, or even garden beds on legs – like a ‘Vegepod’ are great. However, these require investment. To work with what you have, you need to look after yourself. Most athletes stretch with warm up exercises before and after the race – gardening is a strenuous activity at times so warmups are a good idea. Don’t spend too long doing the same thing – weed for 5 – 10 mins then switch to pruning for 5 – 10 mins. Or switch the rake from you left hand to your right hand throughout the task. It changes the muscles and body parts being used so you don’t have strain from extended repetitive actions. Consider investing in ergonomic or automated tools to make the task easier. A secateur with a ratchet mechanism won’t require as much effort to cut through branches. Most importantly, listen to your body and stop when it says stop. Have plenty of places to sit. And don’t be slow in asking for help. Gardening is forgiving - you don’t need to do it all in one go. A little and often approach will get there in the end.

What do you enjoy the most about gardening, and why do you think it is a particularly good activity for people in later life?

I would be lost without my garden. I have tried and failed to downsize several times now that I’m in the empty nest stage of life. It is the perfect activity to get me outside on all days of the year, there is always something to look forward to, the exercise keeps me healthy and well and the food is fresh and nutritious. Even just being in the garden – sitting and doing nothing calms my soul and restores my peace. The care the garden needs gives me purpose and a hope for the future. A short hope that a seed germinates or a long-term hope that the summer will be better next time!

What advice would you give someone who thinks they do not have a “green thumb” or has had disappointing results in the past?

To be honest it did come as a shock to me that some people just didn’t like gardening. I always assumed it was because they didn’t have the time or the opportunity. I’ve come to accept that that is ok. But it is always disappointing to find out it is because of previous disappointment. The thing about gardening – it is a life skill, that has largely been lost. In the past if you didn’t grow food, you didn’t eat very well. But as a skill, it has to be learned. There is a basic set of needs the plant has, and so it is a good idea to learn what that is and do what the garden wants, not what you want to do, in with the rhythm of nature. But also – don’t believe everything you see on the internet. Look for trusted advice.

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Diane was, until the middle of last year, the Director of The Office for Seniors, a role she had held for for nine years. The Office based in the Ministry of Social Development in Wellington focuses on actively promoting a society where people can age positively through being healthy and independent and living connected and respected lives within their communities. They support the Minister for Seniors to advocate for the interests and issues of older people. She continues to be involved in initiatives to make the future better for people as we age. Diane was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2025 King’s Birthday Honours list for services to governance, seniors and Māori. For more information on the work of the Office for Seniors go to https://www.officeforseniors.govt.nz

Discussion about New Zealand’s ageing population too often begins and ends with the cost of New Zealand Superannuation (NZ Super). As the number of older people grows, public debate regularly returns to questions of affordability and fiscal sustainability, frequently portraying population ageing as a societal burden.

There is no question that expenditure on NZ Super will continue to increase. Demographic change and increasing longevity make that inevitable. However, focusing solely on government expenditure provides an incomplete picture. It overlooks the substantial economic and social contributions older New Zealanders continue to make throughout later life.

The latest Business of Ageing 2026 report, prepared by NZIER for the Office for Seniors, provides a timely reminder that ageing is not simply a fiscal issue. It is an economic and social opportunity that deserves a more balanced assessment.

The report highlights the growing workforce participation of older people. Those aged 65 and over now account for a larger share of the workforce than at any point since the Business of Ageing reports began in 2011. In 2024 than 55 percent of men and 42 percent of women aged 65 to 69 remain in paid employment, with many continuing to work into their seventies and beyond.

This reflects changing patterns of work with some being able to gradually transition, other choosing to reduce hours, move into self-employment or combine paid work with other commitments. For some, continued employment is financially necessary; for others, it provides purpose, social connection and the opportunity to remain engaged.

New Zealand already has one of the highest rates of labour force participation among older people internationally. There is further potential to support and reduce the barriers to those who wish to continue working by having more flexible employment practices and eliminating workplace age discrimination.

The dependency ratio is commonly used to reinforce the idea that NZ Super is increasingly unaffordable. This ratio assumes everyone under 14 and under and over 65 is economically dependent. In reality, as the report shows, many older New Zealanders continue to earn income, pay tax, and contribute productively long after reaching the age of eligibility for NZ Super.

The report also highlights the growing importance of accumulated wealth for older people. Income derived from savings and investments is projected to increase from $14.2 billion today to $104.7 billion over the next 50 years, reflecting in part increasing KiwiSaver balances.

This trend raises broader policy questions. New Zealand remains unusual in taxing KiwiSaver contributions and fund earnings rather than withdrawals. While the merits of alternative tax approaches can be debated, the current system provides relatively limited incentives for long-term retirement saving compared with many overseas jurisdictions. This policy setting warrants examination as a means of increasing long-term savings and enabling older people to sustain themselves financially.

Taxation is another area where common perceptions often differ from reality. Older New Zealanders contribute through income tax, including on NZ Super, and GST. According to the report, average tax paid per older person is expected to increase from around $17,100 in 2024 to approximately $44,000 by 2074. This reflects both longer working lives and increasing private income.

Perhaps the greatest omission from discussions about the value of ageing is unpaid work. Economic measures rarely capture the contribution of older people who care for partners, supporting children and grandchildren, assist neighbours or sustain community organisations through volunteering. Yet these activities have significant economic value. In 2024 alone, unpaid work undertaken by older New Zealanders was estimated to be worth between $19.1 billion and $21.4 billion.

These contributions are often invisible precisely because they occur outside formal markets. Nevertheless, they underpin community resilience and reduce the demand for publicly funded services. There is, however, an important tension. As workforce participation among older people continues to increase, the time available for volunteering and informal caregiving inevitably declines. Future policy settings will need to recognise and balance these competing contributions.

Older New Zealanders also remain important participants in the wider economy through their spending. While consumption patterns may change with age, older households continue to purchase goods and services, support local businesses and contribute to economic activity across a wide range of sectors.

The evidence presented in the Business of Ageing 2026 report points to a simple conclusion. An ageing population should not be viewed solely through the lens of public expenditure. Older people are workers, business owners, taxpayers, investors, volunteers, caregivers and consumers whose contribution extends well beyond the value of NZ Super they receive.

The challenge for public policy is therefore not simply viewing our ageing population as a burden but to maximise the opportunities that longer, healthier lives create. This requires a broader conversation. One that recognises older people as active contributors to society and values the economic, social, cultural, and community contributions they make throughout later life.

First, a disclaimer: I’m not a financial adviser, and this doesn’t constitute financial advice. It’s simply my thinking, drawn from experience, about managing your money in retirement.

Charles Dickens’s novels, which expose the social issues and evils of the nineteenth century, are bursting with iconic characters who walk off the page and take up residence in our minds. In “David Copperfield”, published in 1850, we meet Wilkins Micawber, who spends much of his time banged up in the Marshalsea Debtors’ Prison. Micawber famously observes, “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery.” Known as the Micawber Principle, this is a stark reminder of the importance of living within our means.

The Micawber Principle doesn’t become any less applicable in retirement. But it’s harder to put into effect, not least because none of us know how long our retirement savings will need to last. I’ve come to think of that issue as the “how long is a piece of string” conundrum. We head into retirement without much of a road map, not knowing how long the journey will be, and unable to be certain where the pot-holes and expensive bits will be. However, as Howard Marks observed, “You can’t predict. You can prepare.”

There are some useful ‘travel guides’ to help with managing your money well in retirement. My favourite is “Cracking Open the Nest Egg: how to make your retirement savings last the distance” by Martin Hawes (Upstart Press Ltd 2022). It does what it says on the cover, with a series of helpful tips (charmingly headed “I reckon….”) and some detailed discussion and advice.

Hawes and I agree on an identifiable pattern to retirement spending: higher in the years when you’re still active, then a slower period, and then often an upturn in expenditure again at 85+. At that stage many retirees are choosing to pay for premium care rooms, or needing to pay for significant support at home.

Another thing Hawes and I agree about is the benefits of a phased approach to retirement. Going from full-time work to full-time retirement overnight is an abrupt adjustment, psychologically and financially. Keeping on some degree of paying work for a while reduces the need to crack that nest egg, and may even allow you to top it up if it’s looking a bit meagre. In our retirement village we have a resident who’s a part time medical receptionist, another who recently retired from driving school buses, and another who’s a pest exterminator. It doesn’t have to be what you did when you worked full time – feel free to try something new and different.

In my case, for the last fifteen years I’ve run a one-woman management consultancy, and over that time I’ve become accustomed to an ebb and flow of work - sometimes almost full time, other times much less. I’ve now reduced my hours and don’t take on work for which I know I no longer have the energy or appetite. My husband John has a couple of directorships (one voluntary, one paid) and occasional other paid gigs. Our earnings reduce the need to draw down from our retirement savings, and help finance our travel.

Another challenge for retirement financial planning is the difficulty of planning ahead – not only in terms of how long your savings have to last, but also what the costs will be. With rates and insurance levies increasing significantly as climate change impacts New Zealand, let alone higher food and power costs, it’s impossible to know what your regular outgoings will be a year or five years out. One way to manage this is to “fix” as much of your expenditure as possible. Those of us in retirement villages who have opted for fixed weekly fees understand the security of knowing that your monthly fee will remain the same year after year for life. And the relief as you watch rates in your surrounding district and insurance costs climb year on year as your outgoings covering these remain the same!

Another useful approach is to make as much use as possible of the various discounts offered to Gold Card holders. On the face of it, a 5% discount may not sound like much, but it can be very useful for big ticket purchases, and certainly builds up over time. The offers are varied, and sometimes hard to get your head round; some apply every day, others one day a week or once a month. A similar moneysaver is the various versions of free travel on public transport.

Of course, for those managing on NZ Superannuation alone this is much harder. Organisations like Age Concern can help, as can a budgeting adviser (check with your local CAB). Stretching money and constantly worrying about it is draining, so make sure you allow yourself small treats and things to look forward to - a bar of your favourite chocolate when it’s on special at the supermarket, or a catch up with a friend.

If you do have significant retirement savings it will probably pay to get expert financial help and advice on how to best manage them, or engage a financial adviser to manage your funds. That’s Hawes’s ‘I reckon #10’. A bit of distance and some professional knowledge is likely to make for more informed and effective investing. Also, if you are selling your home to move into a retirement village you may well have a large lump sum to deal with. In this case, professional advice on how to deal with the equity you’ve realised from your house sale will prove invaluable.

One last thought: it’s not really about having a lot of money. We all currently have the basic NZ superannuation, and whatever else we have, little or large, is a bonus. So here’s my final ‘I reckon’ to go with Hawes’s: I reckon it’s that bonus that gives you choices and options, and that’s what we all need as we navigate the uncharted territory of retirement and ageing.

Many years ago, more than I care to remember, I was the Executive Director of the Bus and Coach Association, which represented the interests of school bus, urban and tour coach operators. As you might imagine, encouraging public transport use was an ongoing topic of interest and research, in between fights about funding, service cuts and the general erosion of patronage from increasing car travel driven by extravagant road building.

One key target market was older people, who chose to use the bus or train because it was affordable, they (usually) had the time, or because they could no longer drive themselves. Being no longer able to drive was seen, and it still is, as a barrier to independence and a cause of frustration. People felt using the bus was beneath them, or it was too hard, and the fear of getting lost was real. After all, if your bus experience was limited to going to school 60 years earlier, a reluctance to do so now is entirely understandable.

Often the buses themselves had steps into the passenger compartment. One of my first lobbying campaigns was to broker an agreement between the Disabled Persons’ Assembly, bus operators, bus builders and regional councils to make urban buses wheelchair-accessible. The argument was that if buses were accessible for wheelchair users, they would be accessible for everyone. This took a while to sink in, but it is absolutely true, and all new urban buses introduced since (about) 1998 have been accessible. As public transport investment via the Clark government grew, NZ had one of the world’s most accessible bus fleets.

All this might be of faint historical interest, but I was delighted to find, via my role as a Trustee of Age Concern Nelson-Tasman (ACNT), an innovative and very successful campaign to encourage older peoples’ bus patronage.

Called “All on Board with Age Concern” a dedicated staff member, with support from volunteer Bus Buddies, promotes bus use though information sessions and guided journeys designed to help older people to understand how the bus service works, build practical travel skills and to see bus travel as a realistic alternative to relying on a car. This programme is funded by Nelson City and Tasman District Councils.

The region uses the Bee card (which is also used in a number of other provincial centres outside Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch) and while it was free to use when it was introduced, people were not confident in using it. Therefore, understanding how the card works was an initial aim for the programme.

Using public transport requires a mind shift. Travel needs to be planned, checking departure and arrival times, transfer points and understanding that what took 20 minutes by car could take an hour by bus. You’re not in control, and that can be challenging for some. The benefits, on the other hand, usually outweigh the disadvantages.

The campaign delivered some outstanding results. 550 older people attended 41 eBus information services, and 213 people joined 15 eBus journeys. 90% said they felt confident to use the eBus again after joining a guided journey.

Perhaps most importantly, senior eBus patronage grew 47.5% in April 2026 compared to the previous April, 36.7% in May ’26 compared with the previous year and 25.3% in March ’26 over March ’25.

These are great outcomes, but it took a lot of work. ACNT worked closely with key agencies, community groups and transport organisations to reach seniors (including visits to Waimea Plains Village) and to talk about alternatives to using a car.

The focus of these sessions was to keep seniors socially connected, maintaining independence, and help them feel able to maintain their lifestyle. The benefits of bus travel were emphasised, then demonstrated in practical outings. In addition to retirement villages, other groups whose clients might face barriers such as English Language Partners, Te Piki Oranga, and Te Korowai Trust were involved.

Social media was important as a means of promotion, as well as the usual Age Concern channels such as the quarterly newsletter. The Councils took an active role via their media as well.

Education sessions were held in venues where seniors gather socially – community hubs, cafes, friendship groups, coffee groups, churches, villages, and libraries. Based on the feedback, Age Concern updated the information and resources, including the design style and format. Some of the barriers are obvious, like what to do with walking frames; others less so, such as how to actually use the Bee Card on the bus. Both electronic and paper media were used to get the story across.

The feedback ACNT received from travellers is very moving. One person wrote “You have opened a door to a new way of life … using buses to places I no longer feel able to drive to. I’m excited as life seems to be opening out as I age … not closing in. Thank you for everything.”

Another said “I thank these bus outings for opening new doors and the opportunity to make new friends.”

There are plenty more, but to round off “Kia ora, the eBus is absolutely a great ride and trip to take anywhere. Don’t be shy, the friendship you will have is absolutely wonderful and professionally provided. I have been on three trips and appreciate the time for these.”

The programme demonstrates that with practical support, older people are willing and able to shift their travel habits, remain socially connected, and stay active in their communities. As awareness of the costs of running a car and the need for affordable transport options grow, there is a strong case for continued investment in age-friendly transport initiatives that support independence, well-being, and community participation.

John Collyns
john.collyns@windowslive.com

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Thanks to Age Concern Nelson-Tasman and the Nelson City and Tasman District Councils for the information used in this blog.

Diane was, until the middle of last year, the Director of The Office for Seniors, a role she had held for for nine years. The Office based in the Ministry of Social Development in Wellington focuses on actively promoting a society where people can age positively through being healthy and independent and living connected and respected lives within their communities. They support the Minister for Seniors to advocate for the interests and issues of older people. She continues to be involved in initiatives to make the future better for people as we age. Diane was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2025 King’s Birthday Honours list for services to governance, seniors and Māori. For more information on the work of the Office for Seniors go to https://www.officeforseniors.govt.nz

What gets measured matters. It tells us what a society values. Right now, as a society, can we truly say ‘we value our older people’?

Ageism is deeply woven into everyday life. It is so common that many older people absorb these attitudes themselves. Comments such as, “I’m too old for that,” or “I don’t want to be a burden,” reflect more than personal beliefs—they reveal the ingrained attitudes that we all hold about ageing.

Age discrimination also affects the way people are treated by others. In the workplace, older employees may be overlooked for promotions or training. In healthcare, legitimate concerns can be dismissed as simply “part of getting older”. Diagnosis and treatment of conditions may be delayed or denied.

The private sector is no better. Older people are likely to face age-based restrictions on financial products, and pay increasingly expensive health and travel insurance premiums. Yet at the same time they are targeted with marketing for funeral insurance. These mixed messages suggest that society sees older people more as a burden than as active contributors.

Ageism is also reflected in public policy. Whether the issue is housing, healthcare, social support or poverty, the needs and experiences of older people are too often overlooked. There remains a persistent assumption that older people are generally doing well and therefore require little policy attention.

Research by the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services illustrates this problem. In 2024 it examined key strategic documents from 35 government agencies to assess the extent of structural ageism in public policy. It reviewed Briefings to Incoming Ministers, Statements of Intent or Strategic Intentions, and major strategy or performance documents. Only four agencies made specific reference to older people, while 19 made no mention of them at all. This absence is a strong indicator that older people are not a priority in policy settings.

Despite increasing awareness that populations are ageing—not just in Aotearoa New Zealand but around the world—this demographic shift has yet to be reflected consistently in government decision-making in any meaningful way.

One reason for this may be that older people remain largely invisible within the international human rights system. Unlike women, children or persons with disabilities, older people are not recognised as a distinct rights-bearing group in any of the nine core international human rights treaties. Some governments argue that existing human rights conventions already provide adequate protection. However, the experience of organisations advocating for older people suggests that little consideration is given to this growing population group.

The idea of a dedicated international convention on the rights of older persons has been discussed for decades. A significant step came in 2010 when the United Nations established the Open-Ended Working Group on Ageing (OEWG). The group brought together governments, experts, civil society organisations and UN agencies to examine gaps in the protection of older people’s rights.

Although the OEWG produced valuable research and helped raise awareness, member states could not agree on whether a new treaty was needed. Some believed existing human rights instruments simply needed to be implemented more effectively. As differences between governments became increasingly entrenched, the OEWG was formally concluded in 2024 without reaching agreement.

Meanwhile, the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva has steadily increased its attention to the human rights of older persons, including through the work of successive Independent Experts. One of these experts visited New Zealand in 2020, highlighting both progress and ongoing challenges.

The end of the OEWG created an opportunity for a fresh approach. In April 2025, the Human Rights Council established a new open-ended intergovernmental working group to begin drafting a legally binding international instrument on the human rights of older persons. The resolution was adopted by consensus and sponsored by 81 countries from every region of the world.

This marks an important turning point. For the first time, there is a formal mandate to draft a treaty specifically focused on protecting and promoting the rights of older people.

There is, however, no guarantee that a convention will ultimately be adopted. Negotiations will need to address difficult questions, including who should be considered an “older person”, what rights should be included, how governments would be held accountable, and how different legal and political traditions can be reconciled.

The credibility of this process will depend on how it is conducted. It must be inclusive, transparent and involve meaningful participation by civil society—especially older people themselves. The more robust the drafting process is, the stronger the resulting convention will be during negotiations at the UN General Assembly and, eventually, through national ratification.

Some will question whether the world really needs another human rights treaty. That is a legitimate debate. But international conventions have done much more than create legal obligations. They establish shared standards, shape national laws and public policy, strengthen advocacy, raise public awareness, and provide governments with clear accountability through regular reporting.

A convention on the rights of older persons has the potential to do the same.

As New Zealand considers its place in this international process, it is important that civil society organisations, the Human Rights Commission and, above all, older people themselves are actively involved. Government support for a future convention cannot be assumed, and that is why we need to ensure that we are involved.

Population ageing is one of the defining social changes of the twenty-first century. The question is no longer whether our societies are ageing. It is whether our laws, our policies and our attitudes will evolve to ensure that growing older does not mean fewer rights, fewer opportunities or less dignity.

For information about the UN process and opportunities to participate, visit: www.ohchr.org/en/hrc-subsidiaries/iwg-older-persons.

Mark Henrickson is a person who wears many hats. He is currently a vicar in a small rural Anglican parish, and before this he spent over 20 years working as a professor of social work at Massey University. Mark has also worked as an international research consultant with agencies such as WHO and UNICEF.

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Note: This post is not intended as legal advice, but to encourage reflection on the ethics of consent in residential care contexts.

You may have recently heard in the news political conversations about consent. If you work in or interact with residential care, health or mental health providers, or just about any kind of human service or research with humans you will have encountered the idea of consent. The notion of consent requires

• capacity

• voluntariness

• being fully informed

• that it be ongoing, specific and active

We’ll review each of these in a moment. The question I would like to consider in this post is whether legal consent is adequate or appropriate in every situation that appears to require consent. We live in a risk-averse world, and institutions are not only concerned about protecting the people in their care: they are also interested in protecting themselves against complaints and legal actions by people who believe their rights have been violated or abridged in some way. In these days of citizen journalism and social media it makes business sense for facilities to be concerned about the reputational risk of being perceived as exposing someone in their care to harm. The question as to which of these protections—person or institution—is more important may depend on the institution and context.

Consent is more complex than it appears on the surface. When we apply consent to intimacy, sexuality, and relationships in a residential care setting, consent can become very complicated. To be on the safe side, risk-averse institutions are likely to encourage care staff to take the most conservative approaches. To be sure, facilities must ensure that people in their care are not exposed to predatory, physical, emotional or other risks. Such risks may not be as common as they are imagined or perceived. For cultural, religious or generational reasons, conservative approaches may simply be what some caregivers are most comfortable with, that conform to their own values. However, when caregiver values are imposed on residents, or decisions are made on residents’ behalf, these approaches may prevent residents from participating in life-affirming relationships. Example of such conservative approaches include requiring open doors to private rooms; walking into a resident’s room without knocking or waiting to be invited in; deliberately separating residents who appear to be developing a relationship; blocking adult internet sites; or unnecessarily consulting with family members about resident requests or activity. Conservative approaches may prioritise avoiding risk to facilities over the needs, wants or desires of residents. Fortunately, this kind of institutional risk management appears to be in decline in most facilities.

Elements of consent

Capacity asks whether we have the ability to consent. Often this is related to age: in Aotearoa New Zealand we set the legal capacity for consent to sexual activity at 16, although anyone under 16 can still consent to their own testing and treatment for a sexually transmitted infection (under most circumstances, using a standard called the ‘Gillick Competence’—but that’s not relevant here). If an individual has an intellectual, mental, or physical impairment, the law recognises that they may not fully understand what they are consenting to. An individual may not be able to verbalise consent. If an individual is intoxicated or affected by alcohol or drugs, or unconscious, the law says their capacity to consent is impaired. Dementias can raise questions of intellectual capacity to consent. We know that intellectual capacity associated with dementias is not consistent throughout the day, week or month, so an individual’s capacity to consent to intimacy may vary. The question of capacity is something to which we will return in a moment.

Voluntariness means that consent must be given completely freely. Consent obtained through force, threats, coercion, bullying or emotional pressure, deceit, trickery or abuse of any kind of power is not voluntary, and therefore is not valid. This is element where some facilities have concerns about so-called predatory behaviour by more powerful over less powerful residents.

Being fully informed means that an individual must receive adequate information to make a sound decision. This means that the person must understand the risks, benefits and the specific nature of what they are agreeing to. In the context of intimate relationships, it also means not being misled about the nature of the proposed activity, or the identity of the person. I know of a situation where facility staff were very concerned about an emerging relationship between a man and a woman, both in their late 80s. Both residents used wheelchairs and required staff to move them. They enjoyed each others’ company. Staff knew that the man had an old history of sex offending, the circumstances of which were unknown. Staff debated the risk to the woman and to the facility. They considered their responsibilities around legal consent: Should they speak to the man? Should they tell the woman about the man’s history (which probably would have violated the Privacy Act), and so ‘help’ her to be fully informed and able to make a truly voluntary decision about the relationship? Should they passively prevent the relationship by simply keeping the couple apart? We might begin by asking what the real risk here was: was he really likely to cause harm from his wheelchair?

Finally, ongoing, specific, and active agreement means more than not saying ‘no’. Consent Is not necessarily ongoing and may be withdrawn at any point; agreeing to an activity today does not mean that we agree to it tomorrow. Specific means that we agree to a particular activity, not one that follows it or is in some way connected to it. Active means that we must provide positive verbal or non-verbal communication; silence does not imply consent. While these criteria are not currently a legal requirement in Aotearoa New Zealand (that’s what the current political conversation is about), they are social norms and ethical expectations.

By now you are probably thinking to yourself ‘but what about…?’ and you would be quite right to do so. None of these elements is perfectly clear or consistent in all times, contexts and people. This is particularly the case in older persons whose capacity to consent varies. But here we also encounter the ability to express consent to specific things: if a person has never in their life enjoyed Brussel sprouts, they will most likely leave them on their plate in the facility dining hall even if they have become severely intellectually compromised. (They’ve also probably not prepared them roasted, with oil and a little garlic—yum!) Regardless of their impairment, they still have the capacity to express their lack of consent to eating the Brussel sprouts.

Further complicating this issue is the debate about whether intimacy and sexuality for older adults is a need or a right, and whether it is part of the responsibility of the care facility either to support intimacy or to protect the older person in care from intimacy. If I have a right to intimate touch, then what does that imply about consent, even if my ability to consent to intimacy seems (occasionally) impaired? If I am occasionally intellectually impaired but I still leave Brussel sprouts on my plate, what does that imply about my ability to consent to intimate touch, a hand held, a cheek stroked? Is intimacy so very different from decisions about other things I take (or refuse to take) into my body, even if I am intellectually impaired? If I live in in a residential care facility and develop an affection for another person, is it ‘wrong’ to want to be with them, to hold their hands or engage in intimate touch with them? At this point I’m sure some readers will be uncomfortable because of their questions about consent, but if I seek to hold their hand, they return my gaze and are apparently willing to hold hands with me, how is that not consent?

Now we can add the complexity that perhaps one or more of the participants in such a relationship is already committed to a long-term relationship with someone who does not live in the care setting, or has adult children who are opposed to their parent developing a new relationship. What, if any, are the responsibilities of care staff at this point?

It is not surprising, then, that care facilities may encourage their staff to take the most conservative approaches, regardless of the apparent consent of the people involved. They do this not only to minimise the risk of harm to the participants in the relationship, but also the reputational risk of an irate spouse, partner or adult child lodging a complaint that the institution was negligent in not preventing the relationship. Who wants to deal with that? It just means pain for everyone.

That is one reason why I think we need to be talking a lot more about intimacy and sexuality in residential care. We need to talk about these things at the point when someone enters care. Care facilities need to provide education about intimacy and sexuality not only to residents, but also to family members, partners and children early in the residential care journey. Regular workshops on sexuality and ageing are an idea whose time has come. Facilities also need to have structured support for family members if their spouse or partner develops affections for another resident. There are generations of now older people who have been taught not to talk about intimacy, that ‘sex is dirty and disgusting and you should save it for the person you love’. That approach isn’t helpful now, and it will certainly not be useful as new generations with different attitudes to intimacy and sexuality age into residential care. This will mean training up all staff to be non-judgmental and value neutral, at on-boarding, and throughout their careers, so that they are able to have conversations with residents and family members. This is part of person-centred care. What we know about such training is that we are unlikely to change attitudes, but we can change policies and behaviours in the workplace.

I am aware that I am proposing adding more to already stretched staff and budgets, but if facilities promote person-centred care, and nurses, social workers, occupational and diversional therapists say they practice person-centred care, what is so different about intimacy and sexuality that we can ignore it? Consent is complicated, and legal-only approaches set a floor, not a ceiling, for these conversations. Legal and risk-management approaches may protect the facility but may not be useful to support the health and wellbeing of the resident.

If you want to explore this issue in more detail, please see Schouten, V., Henrickson, M., Cook, C.M., MacDonald, S., & Atefi, N. (2021). Intimacy for older adults in long-term care: A need, a right, a privilege—or a kind of care? Journal of Medical Ethics, 48 (10): 723-727. https://doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2020-107171

Janet Brown is the director of Head and Heart Ltd, a consultancy that has been an associate member of the Retirement Villages Association for 14 years. She has worked across the retirement village sector, with not-for-profits, corporates and independent villages, coaching managers and other staff, facilitating strategic and operational planning, and providing governance support and training. Since mid-2024 Janet has lived in a retirement village, so she now has consumer insights as well.

I recently attended the conference of an organisation which has an overwhelmingly female (and generally older) membership. It felt like stepping back in time. Plenary sessions began with a cheerful “Good morning, ladies!”. One of my workshop tutors called the group “girls”. I felt increasingly uneasy as I thought of the sole male attendee, and also the younger members (who the organisation really wants to attract) for whom this language must seem archaic. In addition, throughout the week there was no use of reo. No mihi whakatau. No karakia. No waiata. In the end I wasn’t sure I was in the Aotearoa I know and love at all. The irony was that the conference ended the day before our newest statutory holiday – Matariki – and yet I’d just had a week in a mono-cultural, gendered bubble. I might have been back in the decade of my birth, the 1950s.

I’ve been pondering why this matters so much. We all know that Aotearoa New Zealand is becoming increasingly diverse. The 2023 census showed that, while 67.8% of the population identifies as European, 17.8% is Māori, 17.3% Asian, and 8.9% Pasifika, with increasing numbers reporting a mix of ethnic backgrounds. And approximately one in 20 adults in New Zealand identifies as gender diverse, although those numbers are widely believed to be under-reported. In addition, many of us would like to believe we’ve become a more tolerant society. For example, groundbreaking social legislation has legalised same-sex marriage. So when you find yourself back in the 1950s, the dissonance is hard to take.

Perhaps this shouldn’t matter as you age. Perhaps our older New Zealanders are entitled to carry their 20^th century upbringing and attitudes into the 21^st century. The problem here is that, if we want everyone to thrive in their retirement, we need to reflect and respect those increasingly diverse demographics. Many younger retirees have adapted to these changes in their working years and, as I did, feel uncomfortable about non-inclusive language and a mono-cultural approach. And younger whānau and friends will certainly notice. In addition, we have legislation mandating equality of access and equal rights.

It’s an ongoing challenge for retirement villages to attract diversity. A village manager once told me that, unless village populations reflected the underlying community population, sales would drop. This principle applies to organisations as well. It’s helpful to be thinking about who we might want or expect to join our organisation or move to our village ten years Another village manager found that replacing “husband’ and “wife” with “partner” immediately made all their documentation more inclusive. Keeping language as simple and relaxed as possible helps make it feel warm and inclusive: “whānau”, “members”, “everyone”, or “friends” can easily replace “ladies and gentlemen”.

All managers know it’s the existing residents who make or break the welcome in a village for new residents. For village populations to become more diverse, existing residents may need to “rub shoulders with diversity” regularly – perhaps by highlighting our various language weeks, cultural holidays and celebrations like Chinese New Year and Diwali, offering ethnic food in the restaurant, holding mini film festivals and screenings, book displays in the village library, and bringing in diverse speakers and entertainers.

Some time ago I talked with the team at Age Concern Canterbury. They told me that their rainbow community clients’ main concern was whether they’d feel safe, and whether they’d be welcomed in a village or subtly (or not so subtly) ostracised. One client asked “How do we know it’s gay-friendly, and that we can safely move into a village?” That’s a good question. Retirement villages and membership organisations need to make their openness explicit. Advertising and recruitment material needs to reflect this as well. Imagine looking at your collateral from another perspective – a same sex couple, or a prospective Asian resident. Would these people see themselves in your promotional material? If not, why not?

While I was cocooned in my 1950s bubble, I missed two events in our village that are hopeful indicators of change and how it works. On our new Matariki holiday, a dozen hardy residents rose before dawn, wrapped up warmly, and drove out to the country. Called by the conch, they set up the village telescope and located the Matariki constellation. Karakia were said, a waiata was sung. Then it was back in the cars and off to a local restaurant for a hearty, warming breakfast and enjoyable conversation and company. A perfect Matariki celebration.

The previous day, the traditional village midwinter Christmas lunch had morphed into a Mexican-style Fiesta. Delicious street food warmed tummies, as did mulled wine, and residents wore bright colours to cheer up the winter drabness. It got rave reviews, and everyone had a lot of fun.

I’m reassured by people’s willingness to embrace these changes, in their 70s, 80s and 90s. And, like the Matariki stars point the way to the year ahead, these emerging new traditions remind us of the need to actively model change and diversity to make it less threatening. To borrow a phrase from Gandhi, we all need to be the change we want to see in the world, no matter what our age is.

John retired after 17 years as Executive Director of the Retirement Villages Association (RVA) in August 2024 and is a Life Member of the RVA. He is a Director of Olive Estate Lifestyle Village in Nelson, a Trustee of Nelson-Tasman Age Concern, and a resident of Waimea Plains Retirement Village. The comments are entirely his own and do not represent the views of any of the above organisations.

In my June 2026 blog I wrote about some housing alternatives for older people, noting that as only 14% of people aged 75+ choose to live in a retirement village, there is clearly a need for alternatives. That blog looked at the advantages and disadvantages of tiny homes, granny flats, and home sharing. This time I’m looking at co-housing, homeshare, rentvesting, intergenerational living, and rentals.

Co-housing, homeshare and other shared living models

Co-housing is gaining attention in New Zealand as a model that combines private space with shared facilities and intentional community. In a co-housing development, residents typically have their own self-contained homes but share gardens, common rooms, workshops, dining areas or other communal resources. For older people, the attraction lies not only in affordability but also in connection. Loneliness and isolation are serious risks in later life, especially after the death of a partner, retirement from paid work, or reduced mobility. Co-housing offers a built environment designed to make everyday interaction easier while preserving independence. It can also lower costs through shared amenities and encourage practical mutual support, such as meal sharing, transport, gardening or informal check-ins.

New Zealand already has examples of this broader family of models. Intergenerational co-housing projects are developing in places such as Tākaka and other centres, while Abbeyfield houses provide supported shared accommodation for older people who want private rooms or studios alongside communal meals and companionship. Another related idea is homeshare, where an older homeowner shares a house with another adult who provides company or practical help in exchange for reduced housing costs.

Following the publication of the June blog I was delighted to hear from a reader who runs a homeshare programme in the Nelson-Tasman area for women who are looking to share a home with another like-minded woman.

The service, called HomeShare for Her, has had 450 women sign up for their website and at least 26 women have successfully matched in the last 18 months. You can find out more here - HomeShare for Her – A safe and welcoming place for women to find and share homes in Nelson Tasman

The site addresses two key issues – helping women downsize from large and difficult-to-maintain houses, and helping women find affordable homes.

The service stresses the importance of doing your research if this idea appeals. Rushing the decision and not taking time to check through compatibility in terms of lifestyle preferences is a real issue. For example, a vegetarian didn’t want to live with a meat eater. In another case there didn’t seem to be a clear agreement on responsibility for extra household costs, such as cleaning products. The service provides lists of questions for women to ask each other and a sharing agreement template so that these matters are discussed and agreed early on.

This model reflects a wider recognition that housing can be designed around reciprocity, not just ownership. The challenge with co-housing and homeshare is that they require careful governance. Residents need agreed rules, transparent decision-making, and a shared understanding of privacy, finances and responsibilities.

If this option is popular, some sort of dispute resolution service may be required. Sadly, not every living arrangement is perfect and from time to time a third party may be necessary to sort out issues, especially if there’s money and housing security at stake.

While these models are not for everyone, they can be an attractive option for older people who value autonomy and community. They offer a middle ground of sorts, between living alone and more supervised arrangements, such as regular home-based support or residence in a retirement village where residents with higher needs are closely monitored.

Rentvesting and renting in later life

Rentvesting is usually discussed as a strategy for younger buyers: purchasing an investment property in one location while renting in another that better suits work, lifestyle or affordability. But the idea also has relevance for older people, especially those who are asset-rich but place-sensitive. An older person may choose to keep or buy a property in a lower-cost area as an investment or long-term security while renting closer to adult children, health services, public transport or a preferred community. In some cases, a homeowner may sell a large family house, purchase a smaller income-generating property, and rent in a location that better supports ageing. The attraction is flexibility. Rentvesting can separate the question of where capital is held from the question of where a person lives day to day.

That said, rentvesting in later life is not a straightforward solution. It depends on stable rental supply, good tenancy protections and enough income to absorb rent increases. New Zealand research has warned that many landlords and property managers are not well prepared for an ageing tenant population, even though the share of older renters is expected to grow.

For some older people, renting offers mobility and relief from maintenance burdens; for others, it creates insecurity, especially when tenancies are short, accessibility is poor, or moving becomes physically and emotionally difficult. In this sense, rentvesting should be understood as part of a broader shift: later life is no longer defined only by outright ownership.

More older New Zealanders will combine renting, shared housing, family support and partial asset ownership in different ways. Policymakers therefore need to treat renting in later life as a long-term housing tenure, not a temporary fallback.

Conclusions

Alternative housing arrangements for older people are no longer a fringe topic in New Zealand; they are becoming a practical necessity. Granny flats can support intergenerational living while preserving privacy. Co-housing, Abbeyfield-style living and homeshare can reduce loneliness and create mutual support. Rentvesting reflects a future in which some older people separate where they live from where they hold assets, while the wider rise of later-life renting demands stronger tenancy security and more age-friendly rental design. Tiny homes can offer affordability and simplicity, but only when they are backed by secure tenure and good accessibility.

Retirement villages also offer genuine benefits – the traditional model with fixed weekly fees, a licence to occupy and a pathway to care offer a degree of financial security that is unique to the model. Giving up ownership also means giving up the hassles of ownership – increasing rates, difficult insurance decisions, ever-burgeoning repairs and maintenance costs.

Across all of these models, the real question is whether housing supports dignity, connection and choice. As New Zealand ages, the goal should not be to force everyone into a standardised retirement pathway. It should be to build a genuinely diverse housing system in which older people can remain connected to whānau, community and culture, while living in homes that are safe, affordable and fit for purpose. In that sense, the future of housing for older New Zealanders is not one model but a wider menu of possibilities.

John Collyns

John.collyns@windowslive.com

Janet Brown is the director of Head and Heart Ltd, a consultancy that has been an associate member of the Retirement Villages Association for 14 years. She has worked across the retirement village sector, with not-for-profits, corporates and independent villages, coaching managers and other staff, facilitating strategic and operational planning, and providing governance support and training. Since mid-2024 Janet has lived in a retirement village, so she now has consumer insights as well.

Recently, triggered by a significant birthday, I’ve been thinking about aspects of getting older. Mostly, I don’t feel like an older person. True, some days my arthritic knees convince me I’m no longer young and nimble, but my brain still does what it should. I aced my 75 year old driver’s licence renewal tests, so that was reassuring. I’ve already outlived my father and eldest sister by decades, and almost outlived my mother. Nonetheless, some days I’m reminded of what one particular retirement village operator was fond of saying: “Fifty may be the new thirty, and seventy may be the new fifty, but eighty’s still eighty.” And that’s approaching; as I left my doctor’s surgery after the licence tests, he said cheerfully “We’ll do it all again when you’re eighty”. So there you are – we’re on the countdown to eighty now.

I’ve got plenty of inspiration for ageing well to eighty and beyond. My sister still plays piano in a trio where all three musicians are in their eighties. Each Saturday I play Scrabble with (and am usually beaten by) a dear friend much older than me. There’s an alto significantly older than me singing alongside me in the Cathedral choir. Our retirement village operator’s strapline is “Live the age you feel”, and it seems that most people in our village definitely feel younger than their chronological age.

My musings have had me thinking about the conditions needed for healthy, happy ageing. I keep coming back to what Norm Kirk actually said (rather than the more common misquote we’re used to): “Basically there are four things that matter to people: they have to have somewhere to live, they have to have food to eat, they have to have clothing to wear, and they have to have something to hope for.” So let’s have a look at those in a bit more detail.

Somewhere to live is fundamental, but the detail is key. Older people need safe, secure, warm and affordable housing, with security of tenure. We know that increasing numbers of older people are renting; some of these have never owned their own home. Others are living in their own freehold home but it may no longer be suitable – too big, too draughty, too expensive to maintain or heat. I know from experience that when you sell your 1931 bungalow, however well maintained, and move into a brand new, double-glazed, insulated and carefully designed retirement village villa, the difference is palpable. So housing insecurity or unsuitability is a major issue for growing numbers of older New Zealanders, and this issue will continue to affect more people, driven by our ageing demographic and the general pressures on, and mis-matched stock of, the housing market.

The “food to eat” bit of Norm’s dictum is also a challenge. Age Concern and other organisations working with older people report rapidly growing demand for food parcels as the cost of living rises. I notice that some older residents in our village lose interest in cooking, increasingly relying on ready-made meals or help from other residents. Many older people finding cooking for one a challenge, and eating alone is less enjoyable than shared meals and conversation. Personally, I’m determined to keep cooking delicious, nutritious meals as long as I possibly can – I’m a dedicated foodie and now I’m largely retired cooking has become even more of a pleasure – but I suspect I’m in the minority.

Clothing to wear; well, that seems simple enough. In retirement surely one’s clothing needs are pretty basic? Maybe. But you need to be warm (older people feel the cold), you need good shoes, and effective outerwear for the climate. If you’re living with housing and/or food insecurity, clothing inevitably comes after those needs. And even if you’re simply trying to live on national superannuation, perhaps with a bit of a top up from savings, your clothing budget will be tight. I’ve been a keen op shopper for ages, and fortunately where I live is a very happy hunting ground. The pleasure of snagging designer clothes for $10 or $12 when I know they cost $150-$200 new is huge! But that doesn’t work for everyone.

So now we come to Norm’s last indicator: something to hope for. I’ve always been a great believer in having things to look forward to. It doesn’t have to be something big; it might be a new library book in a series you’ve enjoyed, sitting by the bed waiting to be read. Perhaps it’s the next episode of Masterchef on TV. For years we’ve had a habit of trying to have the next holiday booked before we come home from the current one. It could just be a weekend in a motel or Airbnb, or a visit to family. If you’re a foodie it might be the first seasonal fruit or veges. It might be a daily routine – that mid-morning coffee and a crossword – or a weekly one, maybe meeting a friend for a catch up or a movie. Or it could be something major; a new mokopuna, a knee replacement, trading in the car. The point is that it’s future-facing, and keeps you going.

So what’s missing from Norm’s list? People connections are an obvious one (the famous misquote replaces clothing with “someone to love”). Another for me is the power of routines – they hold you up and comfort you in difficult times, and give you a reason to keep going. And they’re often a joy as well – that early morning cup of tea in bed, or reading the paper, or even watering the garden and noticing the new growth. But I think the key element is positivity. If you can stay optimistic and positive even in tough times, that attitude will carry you a long way. It sounds Pollyanna-ish but it works.

So as I set sail for the eighties, I’m mindful of Norm’s thoughts but I’m focused on being positive, staying active and connected, and being grateful for all I’ve got. And I’m remembering Fred Astaire’s advice: “Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it you’ve got to start young.” I hope I started young enough…..

John retired after 17 years as Executive Director of the Retirement Villages Association (RVA) in August 2024 and is a Life Member of the RVA. He is a Director of Olive Estate Lifestyle Village in Nelson, a Trustee of Nelson-Tasman Age Concern, and a resident of Waimea Plains Retirement Village. The comments are entirely his own and do not represent the views of any of the above organisations.

Accommodation, or rather, the right accommodation, is fundamental to everyone’s well being and never more so than for older people. We remember dodgy student flats where it was warmer in the fridge than the living room, and, being young, we adapted and moved on. Older people have less flexibility about managing inadequate homes, and the wrong place – perhaps with stairs, rising damp, or just five rooms too big – can impact on their physical and mental state.

A retirement village is one option to find the “right” place, but only 14% of the +75 population live in a village, which suggests that 86% choose to live elsewhere. Leaving aside those in residential care, this is a huge number of people and what are some options for them?

For many older people, the traditional pathway into retirement was straightforward: own a family home outright, remain there as long as possible, and perhaps downsize later. That model still works for some, but it is no longer the default. House prices have risen sharply over time, smaller homes are scarce in many areas, rates and maintenance costs continue to climb, and a growing number of people are entering later life as renters rather than homeowners.

Public policy and research increasingly recognise that older people need a wider range of housing choices that are affordable, accessible, socially connected and culturally appropriate. Suitable housing increasingly means homes that are warm, dry, easy to move around in, close to transport and services, and adaptable as mobility changes over time.

In New Zealand, this discussion now includes granny flats, co-housing, homeshare, intergenerational living, rentvesting (a home owner buys a smaller place to live in and rents out their original home), tiny homes and other flexible arrangements that sit somewhere between the family home and a traditional retirement village.

The key issue is not simply whether older people have a roof over their heads, but whether that housing supports wellbeing. Yet many older people live in homes that are too large, too expensive to maintain, poorly insulated, or badly located for everyday needs. At the same time, home ownership among older New Zealanders is becoming less secure, especially for those who have experienced divorce, insecure work, lower lifetime earnings, or long periods in the rental market. These pressures are not felt equally: Māori and Pacific peoples have lower rates of mortgage-free ownership in later life, and many families prefer collective or intergenerational living arrangements that do not fit standard housing policy assumptions.

I’ve been interested in housing policy since moving to the RVA and still contribute via my involvement with Age Concern here in Nelson-Tasman. It’s a big topic so I’ll spread it over a couple of blog posts.

Granny flats and secondary dwellings

Granny flats are one of the most visible alternative housing options for older people because they balance independence and proximity. In practice, a granny flat may be a small self-contained dwelling on the same site as a family home, or a minor unit created for an older parent, another relative, or a caregiver. For older people, the appeal is obvious: they can remain close to whānau, share support more easily, reduce loneliness, and often avoid the higher entry costs associated with moving into a retirement village. For families, granny flats can make care more practical and spread housing costs across generations. They also make sense in a country where many people want to support ageing parents without giving up privacy.

The policy environment has begun to shift in favour of this model. Recent government announcements signalled an intention to make small standalone dwellings of up to 70 square metres easier to build without the usual consent burden, provided they meet specified design and building standards and councils are notified.

Even before those changes are fully embedded, the direction of travel is clear: secondary dwellings are increasingly being treated as a way to improve affordability and expand housing choice. For older people, that could be significant. A well-designed granny flat can enable ageing in place, reduce the risk of residential care, and keep social support close at hand.

However, this option is not automatically simple. It depends on land ownership, local council rules, site coverage, infrastructure connections, family relationships and the availability of finance. It also raises questions about tenure and security. An older person living in a family-owned secondary dwelling may be safe and supported, but they may also have less legal certainty if relationships change or the property is sold. For that reason, informal family goodwill should ideally be matched with clear agreements about occupancy, contributions, privacy and future care expectations.

Tiny homes and compact living

Tiny homes appeal to many older people because they promise lower costs, less maintenance and a simpler lifestyle. After children leave home or retirement changes household income, a compact dwelling can feel more realistic than staying in a large suburban house. In New Zealand, tiny homes have become part of the conversation about affordability, sustainability and flexible living, although rules vary and the legal treatment of relocatable or mobile dwellings can still be inconsistent. For older residents, the main advantage is not simply size but manageability. A smaller home can reduce power bills, cleaning, repairs and the physical effort required to maintain a property. If well designed, it can also be easier to heat, safer to move around in, and better aligned with changing mobility needs.

However, tiny homes are not automatically age-friendly. A beautifully compact house can still fail an older resident if it has steps, narrow doorways, poor bathroom design, difficult storage or limited room for carers, mobility aids or visitors. In addition, tiny-home living can be fragile if it depends on informal placement on someone else’s land without secure tenure. For that reason, the best versions of this model treat universal design as central rather than optional. Single-level layouts, level entry, accessible bathrooms, good natural light, proximity to services and room for social contact matter just as much as square metre size.

Tiny homes work best when they are part of a wider housing strategy: for example, placed beside family, integrated into a co-housing development, or used as a downsizing option in a community where transport and healthcare are accessible. Not unlike a retirement village, in fact.

I hope this blog offers some ideas about alternative housing options for older people. Next month I’ll have a look at co-housing, homeshare, rentvesting, intergenerational living, and rentals.

Please contact me with any questions or comments!

John Collyns
john.collyns@windowslive.com

Mark Henrickson is a person who wears many hats. He is currently a vicar in a small rural Anglican parish, and before this he spent over 20 years working as a professor of social work at Massey University. Mark has also worked as an international research consultant with agencies such as WHO and UNICEF.

Aotearoa New Zealand is country of contrasts. We (well, many of us) say we value diversity, but in practice we adore conformity. We (well, many of us) like to think of ourselves as enriched by a variety of cultures, but woe to the tall poppy who stands out a little too much, who is a little too diverse. We are a motu with both an indigenous population and a lot of recent settlers; in fact, in the most recent Census, 29% of us said we were born somewhere else. Some of us (like myself) are descendants of Europeans who arrived in the mid-late 19^th century (mine were goldminers, blacksmiths, sawyers, and farmers). Because of government policies of the day, some of us came from countries whose first language was English (or something like it), and whose values were rooted in Enlightenment humanism and some form of Christianity. Some come from countries or cultures where English and religion was ‘encouraged’ by colonisers and missionaries, or whose religious values are rooted in some form of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, an indigenous belief system, or some state-imposed non-religion. And some of us go back and forth to our islands and countries of origin, reinforcing our cultural values.

The only things all of us have in common is that we have values. Those values are, of course, different, but we all have some kinds of values. Values can be cultural, or religious, or philosophical, or even generational, or all of these at once. So deeply are our values rooted in us, so much are they taken-for-granted, that we rarely hold them out in front of us and have a good look at them, especially when we are around people who share our values. What we think about and the way we treat women, elders, sexually diverse and trans people, children, animals, what we eat, what we wear, what we think about work, poor people, alcohol and drug use, sex work, crime and punishment—all of these and more are shaped by our values.

Whatever our values are, wherever we learned them, they guide our decisions, the way we live our lives, and perhaps even the kind of work we have chosen to do. Our values are part of what the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor (2007) calls the social imaginary—the implicit set of shared values, beliefs, laws, institutions, and symbols which shape the way we think of, or imagine, our society to be. In a diverse country with lots of new settlers, our social imaginary and its values may be quite different from that of our neighbours, co-workers, managers, clients, residents or their families. Children of new arrivals can develop imaginaries that are different from their transplanted parents and caregivers. Evolving generational values can challenge families.

Some countries see diversity as a threat and seek to impose conformity by discouraging difference and requiring loyalty to the state above all. From time-to-time vote-seeking politicians seek to conform national values to a particular standard, expecting new settlers to adhere to a particular social imaginary—usually their own. Difference can be demonised—we are seeing evidence of this in America right now, where for instance over 400 anti-gay and anti-trans bills have been introduced in state legislatures since 2025, 360 of them in the first part of 2026. NZ has its own version of this in the current NZ First legislative initiative ‘Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill’. The illusion is that a society that shares a common social imaginary is a more ordered society, a socially harmonious society, and therefore more easily managed and controlled. Another perspective is that diverse imaginaries enrich understandings and solutions to complex social challenges, but the trade-off is that such societies can be more unruly, more difficult to manage. Our individual social imaginary guides us about decisions about diversity. Is difference good? Or is it dangerous? Can a common imaginary be imposed by law?

Despite a common social imaginary, some people experience themselves as different from a very early age—people with a physical, sensory, or intellectual disability, people whose mental health makes them feel different from others, gender and sexually diverse people, people who are ethnically or racially different from the majority—and they learn very early in their lives that they don’t fit with what they are being told about the dominant social imaginary, the ways people should behave, believe, act, or love. Sometimes we experience differences when we move into another cultural context. When I was a university professor, I cautioned newly arriving Black African students that in Aotearoa New Zealand they needed to prepare for something they had never experienced before—racism. These Black students had never experienced racism because they were always the majority in their own cultures. My Chinese students would often tell me how often they were treated differently or stared at in New Zealand environments, although I was able to assure them that I, a tall white European, was treated in very similar ways by the local people when I visited China.

In the workplace—especially in caregiving workplaces like residential aged care facilities, health and mental health care, social services and social care environments—we have learned that we need to agree on common values, workplace values, or even for some (like nurses, physicians, lawyers, social workers), professional values. These values can be codified into documents like patients’ rights or codes of ethics or conduct. In health and social care environments we expect staff to align themselves with those workplace values and codes, regardless of their social imaginary or cultural or religious background. That usually means that we know what to expect from our colleagues in the workplace. It means it doesn’t matter when we arrived in the motu, or what our religious, cultural or philosophical values are, or even what our occupation is, are because we all share common workplace kaupapa, values and codes.

Or does it?

What happens when workplace codes and expectations conflict with our own social imaginary, the one we share with families, friends, co-religionists, and people of our own cultural background? It is dangerous to start thinking about our own values as ‘normal’ because then we start to think that values that differ from our own are ‘abnormal’. What happens when we are called on to make decisions about or on behalf of clients or residents for whom we are responsible when our values, our worldview, our social imaginary, are very different from theirs?

You’d like to think that the first port of call would be to consult workplace codes. But those social imaginaries and values that we have learned from birth are very deep, and frequently we don’t think any further. One 2021 national study in Aotearoa New Zealand (Henrickson, Cook & Schouten, 2021) found that less than half of the 433 residential care staff surveyed had received education on intimacy and sexuality from their employer, and 44.3% agreed with the statement ‘I rely on my personal values more than anything else to guide me when I make decisions about sexual issues that arise in my workplace’. Since 33.5% of responses were neutral, this suggests that only 22.5% of staff said that they relied on workplace or professional education when making decisions about resident expressions of sexuality. In this same study, 56.6% of staff respondents agreed that two residents of the same sex have the right to be sexually intimate with each other; while this seems positive, it also means that 43.4% of staff did not positively support the right of same sex partners to be sexually intimate with each other. Significant differences in attitudes towards same-sex intimacy were found by religion, with respondents with No Religion showed significantly greater acceptance than respondents who were Christian or Other Religion. We found a generational difference among NZ-born participants toward same-sex partner intimacy. Of the 201 NZ-born respondents in the study, the 20-40 age group (Gen Y or Millennials, who grew up in the era a law reform and marriage equality) was most accepting of same-sex partner intimacy, the 41-60 age group (Gen X) the next most accepting, and the 61 and older age group, the Boomers, the least accepting. This suggests that attitudes towards sexuality really do evolve over time. (If you want to see the hard data with complete statistical analysis for all the above, have a look at the article, which I have referenced below. Not everyone eats standard deviations for breakfast.)

What all those numbers mean is that residential care staff of all kinds rely mostly on their own values, their own social imaginary, and the ways it is informed by religion, culture or generation, when making decisions about sexuality in residential aged care. That in turn means it is very important that facility managers, supervisors and team leaders provide leadership and training to workplace codes and standards of care, to model those standards and provide opportunity for staff to talk through complex decisions. Not to talk about sexuality and intimacy also communicates that sexuality and intimacy are ‘unspeakable’, so staff are unlikely to begin the discussion. When I led trainings on sexuality in residential facilities there would always be a few moments of awkward silence and then the stories would start to pour out of staff. They were eager and even relieved to share their experiences. They learned from each other.

Of course, like everyone else older people have different values and imaginaries shaped by their generation and contexts, but that is an exploration for another time. Good ethical care means that staff are aware of their own imaginaries, and are prepared to encounter, talk about, and respect difference and diversity in colleagues, clients, and their families.

Henrickson, M., Cook, C., & Schouten, V. (2021). Culture clash: Responses to sexual diversity in residential aged care. Culture, Health & Sexuality. 24(4), 548–563. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2021.1871649

Taylor, C. (2007). A secular age. Belknap-Harvard University Press.

Janet Brown is the director of Head and Heart Ltd, a consultancy that has been an associate member of the Retirement Villages Association for 14 years. She has worked across the retirement village sector, with not-for-profits, corporates and independent villages, coaching managers and other staff, facilitating strategic and operational planning, and providing governance support and training. Since mid-2024 Janet has lived in a retirement village, so she now has consumer insights as well.

I’m sometimes asked how we ended up in Nelson, and this particular village. In hindsight, it was an interesting process. We were both clear that we intended to move to a retirement village while we were young and fit enough to enjoy the amenities and activities on offer. We knew retirement villages across the country well. But given that we were looking while my husband John was still the Executive Director of the Retirement Villages Association, much of the initial leg work needed to be done by me, and to some degree under the radar.

I began by creating our own personalised list of what we wanted in a village. This went from the must-haves, or more strategic aspects, to the nice-to-haves, more optional or practical ones. At the top were entries like “right fit and feel, congenial and diverse residents” (tick); “entry price that allows us to realise extra retirement funds from the sale of our house” (tick); “villa or townhouse not apartment” (tick) and “realistic, ideally fixed, weekly fee” (tick). That last one’s already paying off; our fixed weekly fee looks better and better year on year.

In the middle were things like “flat access and surrounds” because of my arthritic knees; “pets allowed”; “access to public transport”; “garden options – ours/community/allotment”; “care on site” and “good storage”. Yes, we can tick all of these except the care option, and that’s currently being built. Last came an odd grab-bag of things that felt good to have for one or both of us: “can dry washing outside”; “full size billiard table”; “friends already in the village”; and “some influence over villa décor”. The second to last item on our list was this: “able to continue doing things we enjoy – movies, concerts, church, Embroidery Guild”. At the start this felt particularly important to me, as I was already semi-retired and had built a satisfying and active life for myself which I didn’t want to lose. It proved less so.

Our wish list gave us a useful high-level feel for whether a village might be a good fit for us. An important consideration was that we expected to be moving into the village in our early seventies. This pushed us towards looking at newer or developing villages, as they tend to have a younger resident population. It also limited the choice of villages where we had always lived, as they are mainly mature villages. So part way through our search we were faced with a decision I had not expected: do we stay put at all costs and compromise on what we’re looking for, or, if we can find it elsewhere, are we prepared to move? In the end that question answered itself.

We had booked a week’s trip to Nelson in September 2023; I was attending an embroidery workshop weekend, and John wanted to explore local bike trails on his e-bike over the weekend while I was stitching. John grew up in Nelson and had residual fondness for it. I had only visited briefly. There was a new village there, still under construction, that John thought had real potential for us. We both rated the operator and liked their ethos (something that should have been on our list, but inexplicably wasn’t). We went to see it, and meet the manager and sales person, the morning after we arrived. And just like that, we knew. The stuff of romance and fairy tales really. We drove in, and it felt like home.

Then the gods intervened, with a southerly that cancelled our homeward Cook Strait ferry and stranded us in Nelson for an extra two nights. We went back again, and the third and last villa we walked into, the same thing. We were home. Neither of us is particularly romantic, but it was, in the end, that simple.

Looking back, that was the start of the hard work. We went home and had to break the news to whanau and friends that we were moving to the South Island. Initially there was a large degree of disbelief. We were such Wellington people, how could we possibly leave? I was quite distressed by the number of people who felt they had to ask me how I could consider abandoning those of our children and mokopuna who lived in Wellington. Interestingly, as we have built a hugely satisfying and rewarding life together in our village and community of choice, those voices have stilled.

As an aside, one of the factors that influenced my part of the decision was wanting to not put pressure on our children to look after us if or when we become frail. John and I have six children between us; in our forties and fifties while parenting we were also responsible for elderly relatives on both sides as well as having demanding full-time jobs, and I wouldn’t wish that juggling act on my kids.

Once the decision was made, and I knew it was the right one, it became a matter of working our way towards it. If you’re considering the move to a retirement village, let me urge you not to leave it too late. The actual process of getting there – tidying out decades of life’s acquisitions from your home, getting it market-ready, and then selling it and preparing to move – is physically and emotionally exhausting. I’m profoundly relieved we didn’t leave it any later. And yes, it was a wrench leaving the place I was born and lived most of my life. But I’ve learned through life that I’m adventurous and adaptable, so I had to trust to that.

I can already hear the big question: any regrets? Do we ever look back wistfully and wish we’d stayed? Truthfully, we do not. When we return to Wellington, I marvel that we lived there so long. We’ve settled happily and are as busy as we want to be. We’ve made wonderful new friends, inside and outside the village, and stay in touch with our lifelong friends, some of whom have already been to check us out. Our eldest mokopuna pops across the Strait on the half hour flight to spend some of his school holidays with us. Nelson’s climate is a blessing after years of Wellington’s horizontal rain and wind – yes, I know you can’t beat it on a fine day, but we have far more of those here! Our new, insulated, double glazed villa is a joy to live in. Even our geriatric cat has settled well and mellowed here.

And did John get his full size billiard table? He did not. The village’s pool table is well-used, but not by John. He’s too busy going for e-bike rides, playing five hundred on Friday afternoons, singing in the Cathedral choir (where he sang as a treble and tenor growing up) and gardening. See what I mean? We’ve transplanted successfully and are thriving.

John retired after 17 years as Executive Director of the Retirement Villages Association (RVA) in August 2024 and is a Life Member of the RVA. He is a Director of Olive Estate Lifestyle Village in Nelson, a Trustee of Nelson-Tasman Age Concern, and a resident of Waimea Plains Retirement Village. The comments are entirely his own and do not represent the views of any of the above organisations.

Many years ago, when I was the Executive Director of the Bus and Coach Association, coach operators had developed a grading system for coaches. At the top of the tree were the five star vehicles – no more than five years old, big windows, comfortable seats, a high power-to-weight ratio, a toilet on board, and so on. Then four star, similar but older (and without the toilet), three star which were essentially a better sort of school bus, and so on down the chain.

I was very taken with this, and on moving to the Retirement Villages Association, advocated a similar grading regime for villages. My Executive Committee were appalled. They said that every resident thought their village was a five star operation, even if it was a bit old and tired. Coach star grading is based on measurable and objective factors; villages rely on what Australians call “the vibe”. In other words, it’s the community that makes the village, and this is quite subjective. The village could be brand new (perhaps a five star in the coach mentality) but without a vibrant resident community it really didn’t matter what grading it received. I then spent time wondering about how to develop a “vibe rater” for villages but didn’t get very far.

All this was brought to mind when I came across a recent report from our Aussie mates that highlights the importance of community and sustainability, The Catalyst Report1. It notes that “housing is a key player when it comes to ageing and while ageing in place appears to be a clear preference, few studies considered the alternatives – such as retirement villages – until now”.

Based on the preferences of 12,000 Australians aged 60+, and comparing groups by age, gender and where they live, retirement village residents report a “better quality of life”. The Catalyst Wellness index gave village residents 77.5 compared with the average of all other older Aussies at 71.3.

The report also found that retirement village residents have “superior wellness than those who don’t move from home as well as those who downsize to a smaller property”.

To explain why this is so, the Aged and Community Care Providers’ Association’s CEO Tom Symondson said “Retirement villages empower older Australians to live confidently, pursue their passions and embrace new opportunities. They create a sense of belonging and purpose, offering not just a home but a vibrant environment where people can truly flourish.”

“Retirement village residents rate their wellness far more favourably in terms of safety, companionship and access to support. Those living in lifestyle-oriented communities are happier again in terms of independence, activities, mental wellbeing and thoughts about the future”.

For some people, another drawcard is a focus on living in a healthy environment and lowering their environmental footprint. The report then turns to discussing the virtues of green buildings, personal responsibilities around recycling, and energy efficiency. We know these design parameters are also important in New Zealand, with Summerset and Metlifecare winning RVA APL Operator-led Sustainability Awards for their work in installing solar power and Green Building design.

Lastly, the report found that renters fared the worst, with cost of living pressures and the pension not keeping pace with costs. Renters also suffer housing insecurity and rate their financial well-being far lower than other Australians. Similar outcomes can be found here too.

So what does all this mean? Moving to a retirement village has been life-changing in many ways. Swapping a draughty, erratically-insulated 1931 suburban villa for a warm, dry, age-appropriate home is one such example. Rates, insurance and power costs also tumbled when we moved. We calculated we save at least $10,000 annually in building and garden costs, and repairs and maintenance. We’ve made some fabulous new friends and started new activities. We know that most residents share those views – “it’s the best thing we’ve ever done”, people tell us.

So, I have no doubt that if a similar survey were undertaken in New Zealand, pretty well identical results will come up. It’s a five star life, if you like!

John Collyns
john.collyns@windowslive.com

Diane was, until the middle of last year, the Director of The Office for Seniors, a role she had held for for nine years. The Office based in the Ministry of Social Development in Wellington focuses on actively promoting a society where people can age positively through being healthy and independent and living connected and respected lives within their communities. They support the Minister for Seniors to advocate for the interests and issues of older people. She continues to be involved in initiatives to make the future better for people as we age. Diane was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2025 King’s Birthday Honours list for services to governance, seniors and Māori. For more information on the work of the Office for Seniors go to https://www.officeforseniors.govt.nz/

Shelter is a basic human right. Increasingly, access to a place to call home that is affordable, secure, accessible, warm and dry is beyond the means of many older New Zealanders.

New Zealand Super was designed at a time when home ownership was a realistic dream for most of us. By the time we retired most of us owned a home mortgage free. Our income in retirement was adequate to pay for the costs of owning that home - rates, insurances and maintenance. This is now an aspiration beyond the means of many reaching the age of entitlement and beyond.

Data from the 2023 Census indicated that almost 17% of people over 65 are living in a house that they do not own. A further 19% of them were still paying mortgage - most pronounced in the 65 -74 year age group - a significant proportion doing so while entirely or mostly reliant on NZ Super as their source of income.

Ministry of Social Development (MSD) data1 shows that the number of recipients of the Accommodation Supplement continues to increase - 6% of 65+ at March 2025, as is those accessing other means tested supplementary assistance, or in some cases advances to their payment of NZ Super.

Older people who do own their own home outright are nominally in a much better position. However, they are often ‘asset rich but cash poor’ and struggle to keep up with the costs associated with home ownership. They do have security of tenure and most have options. Thanks to the wonderful work carried out by those involved in the Good Homes research programme there is a very practical online toolkit ‘My Home, My Choices - https://mychoices.goodhomes.co.nz/home.html . For those struggling to address repairs and maintenance there is a companion tool which can be accessed at https://repairsandmaintenance.goodhomes.co.nz.

Life can be more challenging for those who find themselves renting in older age. These are real people - some you may know - the long-term renter, the late-in-life relationship break up, extended periods of unemployment in the over 50s, long-term illness - all things that are difficult to recover from financially, and certainly change the trajectory of our later life.

New Zealand does not have a well-established rental market - relying in part on small scale “mum and dad” investors who are principally chasing capital gains. This results in insecure housing, priced at ‘market‘ levels, often with owners less invested in being a good landlord, including making improvements and addressing maintenance issues.

Those who cannot afford private market rentals are reliant on public and social housing. One of the larger providers of social housing for older people has been local government. They were funded by central government to build ‘pensioner houses’ from the late 1960’s through to the early 1980’s. Much of this purpose-built housing stock has now been sold or transferred to other providers. The Government’s income rent related subsidy available to public and social housing providers means that tenants are drawn from the social housing register, maintained by the MSD. The assessment thresholds are such that older people often miss out of being prioritised for the available housing.

MSD have estimated that maintaining the same level of social housing that is currently available would require between 11,660 and 27,500 additional units being constructed or purchased by 20502.

The latest Action Plan from the Office for Seniors has the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development with some specific actions, including building more social and affordable rental housing through a flexible fund. However these actions alone are unlikely to result in reducing the housing insecurity faced by older people now.

There is also a call to build cross sector support to address the housing needs of older people The Christchurch Methodist Mission launched a campaign ‘Doors to Dignity’ in March 2026. More information on the campaign can be found at https://www.doorstodignity.nz/. Their website includes information on how we can support and contribute to the campaign.

The Aotearoa New Zealand National Forum for the Decade of Healthy Ageing has also identified the need to work collaboratively on housing insecurity. The Forum has developed The Pledge Card - a call for all sectors and political parties to work together. One of the five pledges is to progress tangible improvements to address housing insecurity for older people. More information on the work of the Forum and the Pledge Card is available at https://nzdecade.org.nz/ .

Access to decent, affordable housing will enable older New Zealanders to live longer, healthier and more connected lives. In an era where we are concerned about public spending on services and benefits, ensuring older people are able to access decent and affordable housing should be a priority.

Janet Brown is the director of Head and Heart Ltd, a consultancy that has been an associate member of the Retirement Villages Association for 14 years. She has worked across the retirement village sector, with not-for-profits, corporates and independent villages, coaching managers and other staff, facilitating strategic and operational planning, and providing governance support and training. Since mid-2024 Janet has lived in a retirement village, so she now has consumer insights as well.

There’s an interesting conundrum at the heart of retirement village life. Bear with me while I explore it a bit. We expect our two- bedroom, free-standing villa in a new retirement village to be our last home. And we enjoy it, and our lifestyle here. But there’s a significant difference between this home and its predecessors: this one comes with staff. A manager, in fact, plus a village nurse, an administrator, and a team of gardeners.

So what? Isn’t that a good thing, and doesn’t it make our lives easier? Well, yes, in many ways it does. But it also means that our house is no longer our castle. We can’t make all the rules, or draw up the drawbridge and keep decisions we don’t like at bay. Many decisions are made by the village manager. Sometimes village residents agree with those decisions and sometimes they don’t. But those decisions affect them, occasionally quite profoundly.

We moved in with our eyes open. We’d had the obligatory legal advice, and we both knew the industry inside out, having worked in the sector for years. We enjoy our interactions with the staff, who are unfailingly helpful and cheerful. Even if we didn’t, and they weren’t, we’d cut them some slack. But nonetheless, one day, you’re likely to find yourself affected by a decision by the village manager that you have real trouble accepting, or even seeing the logic of or rationale for it.

Perhaps you could try seeing the village manager as like the local council, who also sometimes make decisions ratepayers don’t like. But you get to vote for the mayor. And the mayor, or the council staff, are nowhere near as omnipresent in your life as the village staff. And of them all, the manager is the one whose decisions will most affect the way you live. I’m reminded of a village in the North Island, where the manager was known to the residents as The Mirror, because whenever you took an issue to him, he’d say “I’ll look into it.” And then invariably didn’t, and nothing happened. So it’s not just the decisions that affect people, but also the dithering, and the non-decisions. Either way, the manager is key.

Of course, at times the manager is not the decisionmaker, but rather the enforcer of decisions made higher up the tree by the operator, and this can bring difficulty as well. Having to enforce policies that prohibit putting washing out on an airer on your balcony, or replacing a pet that dies, doesn’t endear a manager to residents.

We all remember the media storm about the Christchurch retirement village that instituted a permanent alcohol ban in all common areas of the village. The village management was technically within its rights, and a disputes panelist subsequently ruled in favour of the operator. But the relationship between management and the residents was damaged, and a resident said “The decision has left residents feeling angry and belittled at the way they’ve been treated. It’s led to real division within the village.”

The Retirement Villages Association offers training for village owners and managers through its Te Ara programme, and regional forums. Many of the larger operators have in-house training and also mentoring or buddy programmes for managers. But, especially in stand-alone independent and not for profit villages, the manager will need to make decisions on the fly, and that carries risk.

All this is on my mind at present, as our village manager has resigned and we’re in the interregnum, waiting to hear who’s been appointed and what their style and modus operandi will be. It’s quite the topic of conversation around the village, so I’m guessing other residents are conscious of this too. I have my fingers firmly crossed that we will be well served by whoever is appointed, and that they will be sensitive to the nature of a resident-led village with a younger average age.

I know, from having coached retirement village managers over the years, that it’s a challenging, as well as rewarding, role. Dealing with an ageing cohort of residents can bring challenges. Sometimes, immersed in the day to day, a manager sees the detail but not the developing patterns. One manager I coached repeatedly brought me her frustrations with what she characterised as a “difficult resident” who had it in for her. The third time I heard another variant on this litany, I wondered aloud whether she’d considered the possibility that the resident was in the early stages of cognitive decline. There was a silence, while she digested that idea. Then we explored the issues through that lens (which incidentally proved correct) and of course the responses and remedies were entirely different. So this is a unique job, and my hope is that we get a fully fledged professional, who likes and understands our demographic, and the nuance of the village.

Here’s the thing: at the end of the working day, the manager and staff go home to the main part of their lives. But this is our home, so the balance is different for residents, and the stakes are higher. Some will always feel vulnerable because of that. So back to my crossed fingers…..

John retired after 17 years as Executive Director of the Retirement Villages Association (RVA) in August 2024 and is a Life Member of the RVA. He is a Director of Olive Estate Lifestyle Village in Nelson, a Trustee of Nelson-Tasman Age Concern, and a resident of Waimea Plains Retirement Village. The comments are entirely his own and do not represent the views of any of the above organisations.

In my last blog I mentioned that as a “resident-led village” we had to resolve a problem ourselves. In that case it was creating a set of expectations of resident behaviour.

I then got questions about the differences between “resident-led” and “operator-led” villages so I thought I’d spend some time looking at what I think those differences are.

I need to stress that while Waimea Plains RV in Richmond where we live is resident-led, there are plenty of other villages across the country that are also resident-led. They often have a younger average age (ours is 77 years) and are, shall we say, lighter on staff numbers than an operator-led village. There’s always a village manager and a couple of support staff (including, in our case, a village nurse), a gardening team and a maintenance person, but these villages are less likely to have an activity coordinator or an occupational therapist. There may be an aged care facility but there often isn’t (ours is being built).

When Waimea Plains RV was being developed, the village manager at the time was very clear that he wanted to foster a culture of cooperation, leadership and support amongst the resident community. The resulting framework, which I’ll come to shortly, won the inaugural Retirement Villages Association’s Resident-led Sustainability Award in 2022.

A resident-led village can distinguish from the alternative in a variety of ways – governance and decision-making, financial matters affecting resident activities, a community culture and degrees of resident engagement, and flexibility and responsiveness.

Take governance as our starting point. In a resident-led village, the residents shape how the village is run on a day-to-day basis. The operator provides the capital to build it but once the residents move in, it’s over to them to organise and make key decisions on matters such as finance, operations, and community activities.

Waimea Plains has six “wellness pillars” that manage the 40+ resident activities. They also coordinate events such as the mid-winter (Matariki) dinner, ANZAC Day observance, Pink Ribbon fundraising, Melbourne Cup and so forth. Each pillar (Moving Well, Relaxing Well, Engaging Well, Eating Well, Creating Well, and Thinking Well) has a coordinator who, as the title suggests, coordinates the various activities under their pillar and attends a monthly pillars meeting with the village manager to ensure that everything is going smoothly. Each pillar meets regularly and residents are encouraged to attend whichever pillar interests them to make suggestions and volunteer to help. Decision-making is democratic and transparent.

Arvida provides a generous monthly financial contribution to meet the costs of the various activities, and the pillar coordinators are responsible for determining risks, allocating funds and agreeing any resident contribution. A Finance Policy has been developed and evolves as the village grows and activities demand. The Treasurer (a retired banker) looks after the accounts, refunds agreed expenses, and produces a budget for each event.

Unlike operator-led villages, we don’t have an activities coordinator, occupational therapist or a staff member who is responsible for the delivery of services or organising activities. In these villages, the operator holds primary control over governance, setting policies and procedures, and managing the finance. While residents are consulted, they have no responsibility for the outcomes or the activities chosen. It’s been suggested that while this might be more efficient (from the operator’s point of view) it can lead to lower levels of resident engagement.

Finance is important too. I noted that Arvida provides us with sufficient money to make everything work, and a cynic might note that there are significant savings for the operator if the residents run the ship. And they’re not wrong. However, the quid pro quo is that the activities reflect the residents’ priorities. For example, if we’re organising a band which is going to cost $1,000 for an event, we need to think very carefully about who pays what, and what plan B is if not enough residents contribute towards the cost. An operator might decide the risk is too great and refuse to allow the event to proceed. So far, we’ve not had to cancel anything because of lack of interest … but sometimes it can be a bit marginal!

It’s fair to say that not every resident here thinks being resident-led is the best option for them. However, the village promotes itself as being “resident-led” so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that there’s an expectation that people will contribute if and when they can. In order to balance different expectations, there’s a clause in our Code of Conduct to say that we want residents to decide their own level of participation in the village activities without pressure or coercion, and that those decisions are respected.

And to be fair, being resident-led only works while there are younger and active residents who are prepared to organise the activities. As we age, this may change. The onus then is on the operator to ensure there are sufficient younger people coming in to maintain the system.

I think that our approach fosters a strong sense of community and mutual support, which was certainly the objective when the pillars were created. In a video made at the time for the Sustainability Awards, the residents talked about creating common goals and finding ways to encourage residents to use their work-life skills in leading village events. There’s a high level of coordination between pillars to sustain well-being and community growth, with sufficient flexibility for us to change events, grow new ones, or stop doing something if there’s limited interest. Another example – we recently had our first village fete, with 20 or so stands with residents (and a few non-residents) selling things they’d made or collected. Admittedly it was a brilliant Nelson day, but in the debrief afterwards, everyone agreed it was a triumph and a date was set for the next one.

Again, in operator-led villages, residents are surveyed for their views on what’s needed, but changes require managerial approval, and the whole process is typically more centralised, structured and less agile. This can be useful to maintain consistency and standards but definitely would frustrate the level of flexibility we want.

Ultimately the decision to choose a resident-led or an operator-led village depends on your personal preferences, values and priorities. If you’re looking for autonomy, flexibility and engagement you’re more likely to choose the former; conversely if you’re placing an emphasis on convenience, consistency, and a degree of professional management, an operator-led village would work for you. Both approaches are equally valid but it’s important for every intending resident to weigh up the pros and cons of each, and choose accordingly.

And good luck! We certainly don’t regret our decision.

John Collyns
john.collyns@windowslive.com

Mark Henrickson is a person who wears many hats. He is currently a vicar in a small rural Anglican parish, and before this he spent over 20 years working as a professor of social work at Massey University. Mark has also worked as an international research consultant with agencies such as WHO and UNICEF.

In late February I had the privilege of speaking at the launch of Eldernet’s latest edition of its Where from Here? suite of resource guides. I have been deeply impressed by the amount of care, passion and detailed work that goes into each regional edition of this guide, and if you’ve not yet seen the latest edition, I encourage you to request a copy right now. I’ll wait.

The topic of my February presentation was called ‘Where from here in Elder care and research’ and the full text is available from Eldernet. It reviews and highlights some key findings from research my teams and I have done in ethics, intimacy and sexuality in residential aged care over the last 15 years. The names of the talented researchers I have worked with and links to reports, papers and journal articles from those projects are available in the text of the presentation. In this posting I’d like to highlight a recent project.

My self-imposed brief is to write about the unexpected in elder care. My colleague Dr Patricia Morgan and I completed a project about 18 months ago on behalf of an ad hoc and passionate community group in Auckland. The report from that project is titled ‘I need to come with heart’: Access to intimacy for persons in residential care. ‘Access to intimacy’ is our public euphemism for supporting aged care residents to access sex workers, and ‘coming with heart’ is the way one sex worker described her work with older clients. Our pilot project was quite small. The essence of the project is that we recruited residential aged care staff and sex workers and invited them to learn more about each other in a workshop delivered by Touching Base (https://www.touchingbase.org/). Touching Base (TB) is an NGO in Sydney that helps people with disabilities throughout Australia to connect with sex workers. We designed a New Zealand-specific workshop that took into account our local context and cultures. We pre-tested the two groups on attitudes, behaviours and beliefs about sex work and ageing. The two groups separately participated in a three-hour workshop. We readministered the survey immediately after the workshop, and again three months later. What we found was that participants in the workshop positively changed their attitudes and beliefs, and even some behaviours, towards the other group, and that this change was stable over a three-month period. More details on the method and findings are available in our report on the project (link to the pilot study), and we have a book chapter about the project called ‘Ageing, disability, and sex work: Enhancing the quality of lives through intimacy’ for the book Ageing, Sex and Disability: New Aesthetics and Critical Perspectives (R. Iacub, P. Simpson & T. Hafford-Letchfield, Eds., Policy Press; find it at this link or through the publisher).

What we found is that there is an active group of sex workers all around Aotearoa New Zealand—male, female, and trans, Māori and Pakehā, rural and urban, across the spectrum of sexualities—who are providing services to older persons, including older persons in residential care. However, as with all forms of expressions of intimacy, there are formidable institutional barriers, including perceived reputational risk, to any one facility acknowledging that reality publicly.

Let me say it clearly: some people in residential aged care are accessing sex workers now, but because of the social taboo that surrounds this topic, this area is unregulated or under-regulated, under-researched, and the enforced silence around this topic by some powerful regulators and organisations makes the topic literally unspeakable.

This silence is unfortunate, because there is a significant missed opportunity here not only to enhance the intimate lives of older persons in care—whose only form of human touch may be limited to clinical or hygiene procedures—but also to provide guidance to the residential care industry. At the moment the national situation is very ad hoc, with each facility providing or restricting resident access to sex workers depending on the attitudes of its leadership. Responses in the sector vary. We know from previous studies that many facilities in Aotearoa informally facilitate access. At least one facility has sought assistance from sex workers in designing an encounter room where facility residents could meet with sex workers. Some facilities are not ready to consider it.

In previous research we found that care staff, managers and policymakers often rely on personal values and beliefs, usually shaped by individual religious or cultural norms, to make decisions about residents’ expressions of intimacy and sexuality, rather than on explicit resident-centred policies to which staff are trained and supported. This idiosyncratic variation in attitudes toward sexuality, including toward residents living with cognitive impairments, and sexual and gender diversity, highlights the need for consistent, culturally-informed education and decision frameworks. This is particularly the case when we consider the residential care workforce profile, which is heavily weighted to new settlers and arrivals to Aotearoa who bring with them widely diverse cultural understandings of sexuality, intimacy and ageing. There is also some virtue-signalling among staff, where carers may publicly decry expressions of sexuality in order to establish a kind of reputation among colleagues.

In our ‘Coming with heart’ study we found that sex workers and facility staff held many negative stereotypes about each other, but by offering each group education about the other these stereotypes began to soften and even erode. Education works. There was a noticeable increase in positive scores in attitudes following the intervention. In our three-month follow up we found that at least one facility found that managing a behaviourally difficult resident became much easier once they supported him to engage with a sex worker. Some workers are willing to come into a facility, provided that facility staff are welcoming. Some prefer to host clients in their own space, where they can completely control the environment, including lighting, sounds and aromas. Sex workers report that most engagement with elders includes intimate conversation and touch rather than genital sexual stimulation, but our sample was small and we are reluctant to draw large conclusions. As sexuopharmaceuticals become more available, this area is evolving; clearly more research is required.

Sex work is a legal and regulated occupation in Aotearoa, and our recommendations include that additional larger-scale research that results in innovative policy and protocol would be useful. Participants suggested that resident access to sex workers should be normalised and treated in the same way as access to hairdressers, nail technicians, or other external niche consultants. Training sex workers to work safely with older clients is important; developing a list of trusted sex workers is one way to ensure the safety and security of clients. Pretending this isn’t already happening protects no one.

Janet Brown is the director of Head and Heart Ltd, a consultancy that has been an associate member of the Retirement Villages Association for 14 years. She has worked across the retirement village sector, with not-for-profits, corporates and independent villages, coaching managers and other staff, facilitating strategic and operational planning, and providing governance support and training. Since mid-2024 Janet has lived in a retirement village, so she now has consumer insights as well.

There’s a 1960s song that can still give me a persistent earworm: “Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky-tacky, little boxes all the same….” Recently I got another dose of that earworm when someone I was talking with said, “You live in a retirement village – aren’t the units all the same?” That got me thinking about retirement village design – what determines it, and how it shapes villages and the lives of their residents.

Village design is driven by a number of factors: the physical site, local council planning requirements, the operator’s budget, the expectations of the local market, and of course the need to build age-appropriate accommodation. Some sites predetermine a particular type of design. Or they may come with heritage aspects; for example, historic buildings to be conserved and incorporated or repurposed, or a history to be reflected in the design of buildings.

In our major cities, driven by land cost and availability as well as market preferences, most villages are now vertical developments: medium to high rise apartment blocks. In the smaller centres, many operators are still building horizontal developments, and there is generally less demand for apartment-style living.

Our village, recently completed, is horizontal, with duplex villas (and some stand-alone ones) and smaller townhouses. There’s considerable space between villas, and they’re angled not just for the sun but also for privacy. Our “clusters” number anywhere between two and fifteen or so villas, creating local neighbourhoods where people share raised vegetable beds, worm farms, communal fruit trees, and joint recycling bins – and also gardening gear and evening drinks. Paths meander through the village, very rarely in a straight line, giving vistas of trees and gardens, and providing choices of routes to go anywhere. When I walk to my friend’s nearby villa for our weekly Scrabble games I have a choice of at least three routes, all of them attractive, and changing with the seasons.

Not far from us is another village, where quite a number of the villas are two or even three storey. A couple of other villages nearby are more traditional terraced-style lay out. So within about ten or fifteen minutes’ drive, prospective residents have real choice of design.

Two key shifts over recent decades have been the move to higher density builds, primarily to maximise land usage, and greater choice in design for prospective residents. These are likely to continue, as the shortage of, and competition for, suitable land is an ongoing issue, and we baby boomers expect choice and flexibility in design.

Back to the earworm. Retirement village units are definitely not made of ticky-tacky. Operators are responsible for building insurance and external maintenance, and high-quality construction is key to managing that cost. When we moved in, we immediately felt the benefits of good design and construction: double glazing, passive heating from the sun, plenty of cleverly designed storage, plus the impact of universal design, which makes our villa safe and easy to live in.

So are they “little boxes all the same”? Not at all. Even where units are of similar design, step through the door and each one is quite different. Every resident stamps their own style on their villa, bringing furniture, art works and other treasures that shape their home. Some, as we did, bring a pet, and plants and cuttings to create their own garden. I’m always fascinated by every villa I visit: some contemporary and newly furnished, some full of loved antique furniture, and others a wonderful mélange of styles. Each reflects the life and preferences of the resident and what they’ve valued and kept as they downsized; their villa tells the story of their life, if you look carefully enough. This is true of every village I’ve visited across New Zealand.

And in our village, even the garden signals that before you get to the door. If you choose to do all or some of your own gardening, you have pretty much free rein here. That means that, although the common areas are planted in a particular style, individual gardens vary. Some are full of treasured roses that reflect a long life - “My Mum”, “Grandad”, “Loving Memory”, “Nelson Girls”. Others are productive – broad beans in spring, lettuces, tomatoes and zucchini in summer, and broccoli, cauliflower and spinach in autumn. All help shape the lives of the residents who create them, and keep them active; planting out, weeding, watering.

Perhaps the most important thing for potential residents is having a choice of design. Finding a village where the design feels like a good fit for you is key to settling in easily and having a rewarding life. So linger a bit over the ads in the newspaper, or scroll through the Eldernet website to get a feel for what’s on offer. Go to open days and look past the carefully curated show units to imagine your life in that unit - your favourite chair, your bookcases, your kitchen equipment. See the village design for what it is: something that will enable you to live as you want to while ageing. That’s what it’s really about.

Have you ever wondered about the connection between robots, monkeys, and aged care? To be honest, there wasn’t much of a link between the three (that we’re aware of at least) until recently. Curious to find out what we’re on about? To explain, we’ll need to take a detour all the way back to the Fabulous Fifties.

So firstly, let’s look at monkeys. Specifically, Harlow’s monkeys. In the 1950s, the big theory in psychology was behaviourism, which thought that human infants formed attachments to their caregivers because they provided them with food and safety.

Harlow disproved this theory by performing some rather cruel experiments on rhesus monkeys. To give you the gist of it, he separated babies from their mothers, placing them in cages with two fake ‘mothers’. One of these ‘mothers’ was cold and made of wire, but provided the baby with milk. The other ‘mother’ was cosier, wrapped in soft terry towelling cloth to provide comfort.

According to the behaviourists, the baby monkey would spend the most time with the wire mother, because that is where they received food. But Harlow found the complete opposite: baby monkeys spent almost the entire time with the cloth mother, hiding with her when scared, only leaving to get food from the wire mother when necessary.

And thus, psychology shifted away from behaviourism towards developmental theories: human infants form attachment with their mothers because they need comfort, love, and human touch.

So, we have the monkeys, but how on earth do robots and aged care fit into the equation? Let’s leave the 50’s and jump forward to today.

Right now, in varying degrees around the world, robots are being used in aged care. They might not look how you’d expect—for instance, a washing machine isn’t normally thought of as a robot, but it is—they don’t have to be humanoid to be robots. There are robots that monitor vitals, and robots that remind people to take medication. And there are robots that detect when someone has fallen, so help can swiftly arrive.

These are some fantastic additions to assist a sector that is under tremendous amounts of pressure. Aged care workers are already so pressed for time, that the addition of robots can be used to help take some of the load off– and use that time to provide more pastoral care, such as taking a resident outside to sit in the sun for a wee while. And with robots that detect falls, older folk will no longer be left lying on the floor for however long it takes for someone to discover them – a staff member will be alerted and can immediately prioritise coming to their aid.

However, the use of robots in care is slowly expanding into territory it should probably not be in-- that territory being social connection. Yes, research has shown that social robots can reduce feelings of loneliness in older adults, but this was generally more effective in institutional settings where people often have fewer alternatives for social interaction. When people had the opportunity to connect with other humans in the community, this was the preferred option. This is unsurprising for multiple reasons, one of which is because positive interactions with other humans is vital for a sense of belonging. Surely we should be giving those in residential care more options to interact with other humans, rather than sticking them in a room with a robot?

You might have already guessed where this is going. Keep introducing robots into more and more aspects of aged care, we will get most of what we need, but at the cost of one of the most important things for our wellbeing – connection with other humans.

Older people are the monkeys and robots are the wire mothers. If we start to place too much emphasis on using robots rather than humans to provide social interaction and care, we will be acting just as Harlow did– though perhaps ethically we will actually be worse, as we now know that human connection and warmth is needed for wellbeing.

Harlow’s experiments have been touted as unnecessarily cruel. Why put baby monkeys through that trauma? And why are we now about to make the same mistake with the older members of our community, particularly those in that cohort who are more vulnerable?

It all feels a bit “black mirror-like”, doesn’t it? You’re older, sitting in a room, feeling lonely and disconnected from the outside world. Your daughter comes to visit, and you think having a conversation with her will make you feel better, but something doesn’t feel quite right… What’s wrong with her voice? It sounds a little different to normal. And why can’t she remember our inside jokes? The realisation dawns on you. This is not your daughter. This an imposter, a robot programmed to sound just like her.

If you think this sounds farfetched, you’d be wrong. Last year, China unveiled an ‘elderly care robot’, used for health monitoring, psychological support, and companionship. This robot can detect emotions, and will start playing nostalgic music when it detects signs of sadness. It can also replicate the voices of resident’s family members to simulate a familiar emotional presence and ease loneliness. Similar to this app recently released where you can “bring back the dead”.

Wouldn’t it be nicer to call your actual family members than have a weird imposter version of them in your room? The research isn’t out there yet, but surely this will elicit some kind of uncanny valley feeling, where these almost-but-not-quite “family members” make residents feel revolted, uneasy, creeped out, and maybe even more lonely than they did before.

A robot cannot care, it can only be programmed to respond in a certain way. How much emotion is conveyed through the touch of a human hand? Even the act of wiping someone’s mouth after they’ve eaten can convey gentleness and care when done by a human. Do you think you would get that same feeling from a robotic hand? Much of the touch experienced by those in residential care is clinical enough already – and even that clinical touch is an important ritual for many people. Sometimes working towards efficiency is not the right answer.

The problem lies in how we’re trying to solve the problem of the aged care crisis. Increasingly “robotifying” aged care roles is not going to fix the problem, and will probably create a whole host of new problems further down the line. We can’t keep slapping on plasters, we need to address the root cause and overhaul the system.

What’s one of the root causes? People don’t see aged care as a glamorous place to work, and so aged care facilities are chronically understaffed. Perhaps it is too difficult to be faced with our own mortality day in day out. Or perhaps we need to change the way we view and value older people in Western society; challenging and removing ageist stereotypes would be a good step towards this.

Not to be all doom and gloom – robots can have their place in aged care. It’s the way we implement them that matters. Any sort of role that involves intimate care, like assisting with eating, or day-to-day conversations, should probably not be performed by a robot if we want our elders to live without depression and with any semblance of dignity.

It’s time to get out of the mindset of “not my circus, not my (or Harlow’s) monkeys”. If not for the people currently in aged care, then for you. Whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, we’ll all end up old at some point (if we’re lucky). If the idea of being left in a room with minimal human interaction and only a robot for company freaks you out, start thinking about how we can improve aged care now.

John retired from 17 years as Executive Director of the Retirement Villages Association (RVA) in August 2024 when he was made a Life Member of the RVA. He is a Director of Olive Estate Lifestyle Village in Nelson, a Trustee of Nelson-Tasman Age Concern, and a resident of Waimea Plains Retirement Village. The comments are entirely his own and do not represent the views of any of the above organisations.

One of my favourite “resident rights” in the Code of Residents’ Rights is the right not to be exploited by the operator, staff or service providers. It’s earnest and well-meaning, and delightfully vague. The other rights – consultation, timely dispute resolution, using a support person, etc – are all fair and reasonable, but apart from a note that a resident is expected to treat other residents, the operator and staff with courtesy, the Code essentially deals with the relationship between the operator and the individual resident.

Which brings me to a point I raised in my blog last month, the lack of a code to guide resident behaviour, and that developing such a Code of Conduct (or guidelines) would be a very worthwhile exercise for the Retirement Commission’s annual sector review.

Bullying and bad behaviour, while not universal in the village sector, occurs sufficiently frequently to demand some attention. Over the years I was required to intervene in a variety of disputes between residents, and residents and the operator. For some examples that reached the Disputes Tribunal, look no further than the Great Kapiti Meat Smoker debate (some residents objected to smells coming from another resident’s meat smoker) or It’s my Hedge and I’ll have it as High as I Want (the village manager tried to compromise on the height of a hedge between two units and failed dismally), from a village in the Bay of Plenty.

Occasionally a resident will engage an advocate to help their case. While this can be useful (and the Code of Residents’ Rights is clear that a resident can have a support person), it can also backfire spectacularly.

In one Auckland case the Disputes Tribunal member described the advocate’s intervention as “Mr X has been insulting and abusive in his communications. He has accused a range of persons of dishonesty, lack of integrity, incompetence and lacking in good faith and good will. The tone of his communications is one of unrestrained criticism. He has displayed unremitting negativity. On a number of occasions I have called upon him to be more civil in his communications. My pleas have not been heeded. In the telephone conference I held Mr X liberally used profanities and expletives, and addressed Ms Y in a disparaging and disrespectful manner.”

On other occasions, residents have covertly recorded meetings and forwarded them to their advocate (the Residents’ Association), resulting in distress for the resident community and manager as groups formed supporting or opposing the manager.

And so on.

It’s a pity that these disputes reached the Tribunal, incurring considerable expense and upset for all concerned. If we had a Code of Conduct for residents, it’s possible these matters could be resolved sooner and with less emotion and resources. In my village, bullying is an occasional issue – it flares up and dies down, and can be the result of bad behaviour (abuse), a strong sense of entitlement, or it’s failing to contribute to the common good that irritates others. I’ve heard of far worse in other places!

However, we are a resident-led village, so if there’s a problem, we have to fix it. A small group of residents met to identify the problem and work out a solution. The solution was then circulated to everyone for their comments.

As a result, we have a set of expectations for residents. There are seven points, and to paraphrase, we expect residents to treat others with respect, dignity, kindness and empathy.

We want to honour and respect cultural, social, physical and personal diversity.

We want to create a positive culture of equity, inclusion and respect for all residents, staff and visitors.

As a resident-led village, we want residents to decide their own level of participation in the village activities without pressure or coercion, and that those decisions are respected.

We expect people to respond appropriately if we see someone being treated unfairly or in a demeaning manner.

We accept personal responsibility for our own behaviour.

And lastly, we aspire to create a village that is accessible, and where our environment, activities, and communications support the needs and participation of every resident.

These expectations are on display in the Club House, and the intention is to remind people behaving inappropriately that we expect a higher standard. It took us several months to work through these and we’re proud of them.

But it would have been so much easier if we had a Code of Conduct to start with!

John Collyns
john.collyns@windowslive.com