Facing the potential for significant costs, Thorold city politicians may back away from formally committing to a program designed to make communities more senior-friendly.
While the goals of the age-friendly community initiative created by the World Health Organization (WHO) are laudable, deputy city clerk Donna Delvecchio told city politicians in a report on Feb. 5 that committing to it could be expensive.
Delvecchio also said committing to the age-friendly initiative, which would include the City continually assessing and improving age-friendliness, a three-year implementation of an action plan, and submission of progress reports to the WHO, could take a full five years of work to complete. The cost of all that is unknown but would likely be “significant,” she said, noting there is currently no grant funding available, she said.
But that doesn’t mean Thorold won’t be a place where seniors aren’t a priority: city clerk Susan Daniels said City staff believe the goals of the age-friendly initiative can be achieved without the City officially joining the program.
Representatives of Niagara’s age-friendly community initiative committee were at council in January, urging the City to get on-board with a new committee to help Thorold develop an action plan for seniors for the years to come. That’s crucial because the number of seniors in Thorold and across Canada is expected to soar in the coming years as the massive baby boomer generation ages, they said.
Delvecchio said an alternative might be to have the Thorold seniors drop-in association provide council with an annual report regarding their age-friendly initiatives.
The WHO initiative evaluates cities’ outdoor spaces and buildings, transportation, housing and other criteria to monitor how senior-friendly they are.
In Niagara, the initiative began in 2010 with a grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, under the leadership of the Region and the City of Welland. “While this appears to be a worthwhile initiative, many municipalities in the region have not endorsed the initiative,” Delvecchio said.
That’s in part because it duplicates some of the work done by an accessibility committee, she said. Delvecchio also noted the City of Thorold already has 23 committees of council, and that not all committees have council representatives on them.
City council deferred Delvecchio’s report, asking instead for a new report on how the age-friendly goals can be accomplished, and what the cost will be.
Coun. Shawn Wilson said it’s clear the burgeoning number of seniors in Thorold — a city that already has a large number of seniors — will have to be addressed. “Over the next 15 years that number is going to climb rapidly,” he said. “It’s going to get worse.”
Wilson said the City will need to try to make Thorold as accessible as possible for seniors.
“A lot of it isn’t at this time,” he said.