Posts Tagged ‘2011 Canadian Census’

Baby Boomers Crippling the Health System?

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

You might have noticed the recent story in the newspaper about boomers crippling the health system.  It was based on a poll commissioned by the Canadian Medical Association. The headline on the story in the Globe and Mail was “Most fear boomers will cripple health system”.

After reading the story and thinking about the poll results, I can only conclude that the headline writer didn’t actually read the story, which was written by Andre Picard, a very good reporter. One of the concerns suggested by the poll was this—“the health system will not be able to offer the same level of coverage as the baby boom generation reaches retirement age”. 34% of the poll respondents were very concerned about that, 45% were somewhat concerned and the rest weren’t concerned.

Put another way, 65% of the poll respondents were either not concerned or only somewhat concerned about the central question. How does this translate into fearing that the boomers will cripple the health system?

64% of the poll respondents were not concerned or only somewhat concerned that they might have to pay more taxes to provide health services to the baby boom generation. 67% were not concerned or only somewhat concerned about not having enough money to maintain their health as they grow older.

It was a ridiculous headline.

And here are two more ridiculous headlines, on the subject of the abandonment of the long form Census by Stephen Harper (note: not the Stephen Harper government—that is a redundancy): the story in the Vancouver Sun is headlined “Acting StatsCan chief slams voluntary census”. The same story in the Globe and Mail on the same day is headlined “Voluntary survey will still be useful, acting Statscan chief says”.

Stats Can keeps repeating (no doubt under orders) that the voluntary survey “can meet the needs of many users”.  What I would like to know is: who are these users? The voluntary survey is not going to meet the needs of my company or our industry.

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More Interesting Stuff from the Census We Will Never Know Again

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

As I have said before numerous times in this blog I believe that the changes the federal government is making to the 2011 Canadian Census by removing the mandatory long form are completely boneheaded. Here is another example of data that will no longer be available:

In Richmond, a suburb of Metro Vancouver, 40% of the 65+ households live in a condo. In New Westminster, another suburb, 61% do. Is that because it’s easier for seniors in New West to downsize? Proportionately, there are twice as many apartments in New West than there are in Richmond (another long form fact) so that’s one possible explanation. Another possible explanation could be that seniors in New West have lower incomes than seniors in Richmond and can’t afford to live in single detached houses. Here’s how that hypothesis pans out: the average income of 65+ households in Richmond is $52,385; in New West, $47,010. So that’s another possible explanation. Or perhaps 65+ households in New West are smaller and don’t need the space of a single detached house. And the facts? 57% of 65+ households in New West are non-family households, meaning most will be single person households. The comparable figure in Richmond is 38%.

Well who cares says Stephen Harper, Tony Clement, and the Fraser Institute.

Communities that want to become elder-friendly care. They need to understand the housing situation of people living in their communities now, as well as how the community can accommodate people who might move there in the future.

For-profit and not-for-profit developers of seniors’ housing care too. Spend $20 million on a housing project without understanding the market? Not wise. Hold on a minute though say SH, TC, and the FI, if they need that information they can darn well go and get it themselves. But they can’t—they won’t be able to replicate the comprehensiveness or the reliability of census data, even if they spend huge sums of money trying to do so.

Many people and companies of all sorts in the seniors’ housing and health care industry will be hobbled by the absence of the long form. The whole situation is, as I have said on earlier occasions, very sad.

If only more people read this blog! A Canadian Press story appearing on August 2nd opines that the Tories believe not enough people really care about the census and the whole thing will blow over. I hope that is not true.

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2011 Census (Reprise)

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

As the government is still persisting in its wrong-headed plans to ruin the 2011 Census, I thought it would be useful to explain in a little more depth why the Census information is so critical for seniors’ housing analysis.

Here is an example of a table we always use when we are doing a market study or a community housing needs assessment.  Here are just a few of the things this table tells us:

  • 83% of the 55+ households in this community are homeowners.
  • The average income of the renters is $38,509 compared to $73,094 for the owners.
  • Single (non-family) renters over the age of 85 have the lowest average incomes.
  • Although not shown in the table, the detailed data indicate that there are 565 renter households aged 65+ in this community with an income lower than $14,999. These are the households facing serious challenges in terms of meeting their housing needs.

Owners

Renters

Family Hshlds

Non-Family

Family Hshlds

Non-Family

Total

Avg Inc

Total

Avg Inc

Total

Avg Inc

Total

Avg Inc

55-64

4,880

$101,729

1,030

$47,153

600

$61,629

510

$30,613

65-74

2,450

$67,633

815

$36,961

220

$41,969

405

$28,178

75-84

1,140

$63,158

1,030

$32,375

125

$35,366

265

$26,375

85+

200

$50,621

255

$24,358

60

$47,584

235

$24,220

Sadly, we will never have this level of knowledge about seniors’ housing markets in future years because all of this information comes from the long form.

For-profit and not-for-profit developers, communities, governments, market analysts—we will all be forced to guess what is going on. Tragic.

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Posted in Future, Market Studies, News, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing | No Comments »