BC’s Seniors Advocate calls for more assisted living units, stronger regulations

BC’s Seniors Advocate Isobel Mackenzie has released her office’s Review of Assisted Living in BC.

“We are hearing increasing from our residents in assisted living that they are finding very challenging financially to stay in assisted living,” Mackenzie said.

“We know that in British Columbia we have a very relatively high percentage of long-term care residents whose care needs don’t warrant long-term care.”

Mackenzie added subsidized assisted living is half the cost of long-term care and a fraction of the cost of acute care, but we are significantly underutilizing it.

She also added there’s been a 52 per cent increase in funding for assisted living in the last five years, but there hasn’t been an increase in units or service levels.

“The most pressing need, is we need to increase the number of subsidized assisted living units,” she explained.

“The tenancy protections for the people who’ve been told they’re not under the Residential Tenancy Act, actually they do have those tenancy protections, we just need to make sure everybody is aware of that.”

Mackenzie added there’s significant confusion both in the public and industry on what is covered in the Community Care and Assisted Living Act, and what is covered by the Residential Tenancy Act.

“It’s clear that we have to make some significant clarifications, changes to both our legislation and to the practice out there in industry to ensure seniors and their family members, are very clear on what they’re getting, what they’re paying for, and what their protections are.”

Mackenzie is forwarding five recommendations to the province:

1. Significantly increase capacity of of publicly subsidized assisted living program with more units and expanded services.
2. Reduce confusion seniors and family members experience while navigating assisted living and other congregate living arrangements.
3. Provide explicit tenancy protection under the Residential Tenancy Act for all residents in congregate living including assisted living.
4. Address affordability issues in both publicly subsidized and private pay assisted living.
5. Strengthen current monitoring and enforcement systems to provide quality assurance, resident safety and value for investment in publicly subsidized assisted living.