Many people who live in larger centres like Sudbury or Timmins take for granted that when the time comes, they can move into a long-term care facility within their community.
However, in many smaller places, seniors homes and long-term care facilities are not always a viable option.
One such town is Chapleau, located on Highway 101, west of Timmins.
Its a small, northern town like any other; carved out of the Boreal forest as a logging centre, and kept alive by the Canadian Pacific Railway. But the population is aging and numbers are shrinking.
These days around 2,000 people call Chapleau home and the average age is 44.
The community has a small long-term care facility at the local hospital, but most seniors have to leave town to find comfort in their twilight years.
“I know of one case where a gentleman's father stayed here at the long-term care facility at the hospital and his mother ended up in Sault Ste. Marie and she stayed there five, six years,” said Michael Levesque, Chapleau mayor.
“This is what happens and it angers people.”
The mayor said the town's hands are tied, as there simply isn't a large enough base of taxpayers to raise the funds for a larger facility.
So now, the people of Chapleau have decided they are going to build the facility themselves.
“It's very important to age gracefully, here in Chapleau,” said Dianne Bourgeault, a Chapleau resident.
“The government wants us to age at home, to age in place, so we want to build the right place,” added Bonnie Ivy, also a Chapleau resident.
That place will be called Maison Boreal and this week Chapleau residents gathered in the local arena to take a look at some designs.
“My predecessors had already expressed a need,” said Pierrette Ouellette, Maison Boreal committee member.
“They already foresaw a need for an aging in place building, they could already see growing numbers, so we started with that.”
That was almost a decade ago; years of surveys, planning and teamwork have brought the group to this point; a long awaited chance to look at potential plans for the facility.
But, how do you outsource expensive architecture designs when on a tight budget?
You approach the architecture school at Laurentian University in Sudbury.
“Maison Boreal contacted us, sometime over a year ago and asked if we would be interested in looking at the question of housing and specifically housing for Chapleau and it's a great question, it's an important piece of research that has to exist more developed all across Canada,” said Terrance Galvin, a professor at the McEwen School of Architecture.
Presented by fourth year architecture students, 48 designs will form the basis of the project to come; but there are still many steps to go.
“The next steps are going to be going for grants, going for investors, because the lot has still not been bought, but by seeing this, by seeing that this can be a reality, it's going to be easier to sell,” Ouellette said.
The road to this point has been a long one, but the dedicated members of Maison Boreal said despite the large number of uncertainties that lay ahead, they're confident the movement is on the brink of setting a precedent for the rest of small town Canada.
