The surprising social milieu of retirement homes

The cliques, the gossip, the hot guy with a car: A retirement home is Grade 10 all over again, but here the new kids are pushing 90. Globe reporter Rebecca Dube and photographer Kevin Van Paassen spent three weeks with the residents of Toronto's Terraces of Baycrest. In the first of a five-part series, they explore life in 'the fishbowl'

Canada is getting older. The number of people aged 65 and up has more than doubled since the 1920s, according to Statistics Canada, and will double again in the next three decades. By 2031, one in four Canadians – an estimated 9.8 million – will be a senior, up from roughly one in 10 today. Life expectancy is steadily rising – it now tops 80 years – and medical advances are keeping people healthier for longer than ever before.

All of those people are going to need somewhere to live. In Ontario, industry experts say the province needs 80,000 new retirement home spaces over the next 20 years. The number of independent-living homes for seniors jumped 30 per cent last year in British Columbia. And Quebec developers broke ground on more than 900 retirement apartments last year.

When most people look at a retirement home, they see what Mrs. Goldstein saw in that elevator: disability, dullness and eventually death. At the Terraces of Baycrest, the average age is 88, the average hair colour is white, and the average pace is slow.

But there's a lot happening beneath that quiet surface. The residents are old, and many are frail, but they're not done growing, they're not done learning, and they're not done with the messy business of love and loneliness and rage and joy that defines the human experience.

Forget God's waiting room: Life in a retirement home is more like high school. There's gossip. Cliques. Flirting in the hallways. There's the worry about not fitting in, and the frustration over adults who just don't listen. You're the big man on campus if you can drive a car, and lunch is the main social event of the day.

Except that at this high school, nobody wants to graduate.

One facet of life that takes some getting used to is what Terraces program director Sheila Smyth calls “the fish bowl.” Gossip flies around these hallways at a speed that would put text-messaging teenagers to shame. Residents live in private one-bedroom and studio apartments with doors that lock, but once you step outside that door, what you wear, how you eat and who you socialize with are all grist for the rumour mill.

After 60-plus years of living in a private home, Ms. Smyth says, “your life is much more public.”

Mr. Hersch got a view of the fish bowl when he walked into the lobby late one night after visiting with his family. A group of four residents he had never met were chatting by the door.

“Do you live here?” one woman asked him suspiciously.

“Of course he lives here,” her friend said, before he could answer. “He's in the coffee shop every morning at 8 o'clock having coffee and a cheese bun.”

The gossip makes some residents withdraw, guarding their private lives carefully.

Most just shrug it off – or join in. Mr. Hersch decided he might as well give the ladies something to talk about.

Experts say people need two things to adjust successfully: a sense of control and a social network, in that order. A sense of humour like Mrs. Goldstein's doesn't hurt.

“At every age and stage we want some sense of being able to influence our environment,” says Maureen Osis, a family therapist and gerontology nurse who consults on long-term care issues. “Giving people choice is a very respectful thing to do.”

From childhood on, our lives can be described as a struggle for control – over what we eat, when we sleep, what we wear, how we spend our time at work and at home, how we live and, ultimately, how we die.

Moving to a retirement home means relinquishing some of that control. The Terraces serves lunch, a convenience for which most residents are grateful; but it's at noon, whether you like it or not, and you get two entrée choices – spaghetti or boiled chicken, for instance. If you can't drive, you've got to content yourself with the entertainment options the home offers. A handful of social workers are looking over your shoulder, making sure you're happy. It's certainly possible to welcome the help and resent it at the same time.

And people get crabby and anti-social here just like they do anywhere else. Instead of road rage, the Terraces has elevator rage: Impatient residents have been known to not-so-accidentally bump into slowpokes in the after-lunch rush, setting off a domino effect of wobbly, annoyed seniors.

But having friends is undeniably good for you. Researchers have established a firm link between strong social networks and better health.

The Terraces of Baycrest: vital statistics

187 Residents

81 Per cent female

10 Number of couples

88.2 Average age

4.4 years Average length of stay

$3,264 Monthly cost of bachelor apartment, including meals and services

Affiliation Part of Baycrest, one of the top gerontology research centres in the world

Ethnicity/religion Mostly Jewish (Baycrest was founded in 1918 as the Toronto Jewish Old Folks Home)

Nursing homes v. retirement homes

Nursing homes Government-regulated facilities for seniors with significant medical needs.

Retirement homes Unregulated; many offer some medical support and meal services, but they cater to seniors who can live independently and make their own choices.