Part of a seniors housing survey was unveiled at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting in Quesnel.
Mitch Vik, the Liaison for the North Cariboo Seniors Council that conducted the survey in partnership with the city, noted that 68 percent of seniors indicated that their residence will not be suitable for them in the next 5 to 10 years…
“That is a staggering number that shows how many people are going to require some measure of proper housing in the very near future.  Another interesting statistic is that 89 percent of seniors who took the survey indicate they do not want to leave the community, they want to age in place in our community in some fashion.”
Vik says many also reported that they have the resources needed to purchase housing…
“63 percent of respondents indicated that they have 100 percent equity in their current residence, so that illustrates that if there was some housing option for them they have the money to actually take advantage of suitable housing, whether that’s a gated community or condominiums whatever.”
One disappointing part of the survey, according to Vik, was on the inventory side of things…
“Part of the Seniors Council mission was to determine the inventory side, give seniors options in terms of where they can connect to locate hosing options and unfortunately we had very low uptake from landlords, owners of applicable housing.  And that’s by virtue of the fact that there is such high demand in the community, there is little motivation for landlords to list their opportunities for residents on a website to be viewed by seniors.”
Because of that, Vik says the Seniors Council took matters into their own hands…
“Anna Rankin, our Coordinator, did a tremendous job in researching every apartment building in our community, available suites, available seniors opportunities like gated communities.  She’s done a phenomenal job collecting that data and we are still going to have that as an information piece on the North Cariboo Seniors Council website.”
This survey was a partnership between the City of Quesnel and the North Cariboo Seniors Council.
Something going on in the Cariboo you think people should know about?
Send us a news tip by emailing [email protected].
