By: Dana McAuley and Dr. Louisa-May Khoo

Dr. Louisa-May Khoo is an urban planner focusing on housing, diversity, aging, and social resilience. She has championed affordable housing for older adults in Vancouver, contributed to aging governance solutions that earned Singapore the 'Blue Zone' designation, and is currently a senior planner in Maple Ridge, British Columbia. Her research integrates neurosciences with urban change to enhance community wellness and create thriving neighborhoods. 

On Feb 5, 2025, Dr. Khoo joined us as a panelist in “Designing the Future: Spreading and Scaling Innovative Seniors Living Models”. Following the event, the audience’s message was clear: 

“We need to look at models beyond Canada and get moving on them ASAP.” - Housing Event Attendee  

Dr. Khoo joined us in a lively discussion to share additional key insights on how Singapore's housing and social infrastructure supports longevity. 

 

Key Takeaways

 

Singapore's Unique Housing Model 

Singapore's approach to housing is unique, as eighty percent of Singaporeans live in subsidized public housing, with ninety-five percent of them owning their non-market home. Singaporeans can purchase these subsidized flats directly from the public housing authority (the Housing and Development Board, ‘HDB’) or through the resale market. Singapore’s public housing system promotes a “cradle-to-grave" approach with the supply of different unit types in integrated public housing neighbourhoods enabling people to live intergenerationally and access amenities across their life-cycle from schools to eldercare facilities. This facilitates ageing-in-place, in familiar environments and amongst one’s well-loved community. Housing grants are also provided as incentives to encourage adult children to live with or near their parents for mutual care and support through the Proximity Housing Grant (PHG). 

Integrated Housing Facilities for Older Adults 

Singapore has developed purpose-built apartments designed for independent living with integrated care services. For example, Kampung Admiralty is a model which co-locates 120 senior apartments in 2 high-rise blocks with healthcare facilities, retail services, a childcare center, a seniors activity center, a rehabilitation facility, and a variety of community spaces including a roof-top garden lovingly nurtured by the seniors living there. The project brought together 7 different agencies to create the integrated project. 

 

Community Care Apartments 

Assisted living and long-term care facilities, if available, are mostly run by non-profit organizations which had long waiting lists or were otherwise privately operated facilities with price points that many could not afford. To address this gap, Singapore recently piloted the ‘Community Care Apartments’, subsidized senior apartments which people can purchase, which provides tiered eldercare packages to support seniors as they age. This housing model offers assistance for ADLs and hospitality services that can be scaled up as care needs increased. Residents can also enjoy home renovations by an on-site manager, basic health checks, 24-hour emergency response and social activities and priority admission to the nearby nursing home, allowing residents to age-in-place in familiar places.  

 

Innovative Funding Models 

In Singapore, government-funded apartments offer flexible lease terms to accommodate the needs of older adults. Apartments for seniors can be purchased for shorter leases of between 15 to 35 years (in 5-year increments) to enable greater affordability. Homeowners can also sell part of their flat’s lease (usually initially purchased for 99 years) back to the government, to monetize their flat while continuing to live in it.  

This means if a resident had initially purchased a 99-year lease on their home and they had stayed in it for 30 years, the homeowner can retain 30 years of their lease and sell the remaining 36 years on their lease back to the public housing authority. The resident can then use the funds monetized from the lease bought back by the government to support their finances in retirement. 

  

Eldercare and Active Aging Centers 

Senior-centered and supportive centers are now commonplace and integrated in neighbourhoods across Singapore. Some of these provide drop-in centres which organize social and recreational activities. Others include daycare activities and respite care for caregivers as well as rehabilitation services with physiotherapy amenities integrated within the eldercare centres.  

More recently, Singapore has also introduced active aging hubs targeted at adults over age 50. These active aging hubs aim to build social bonds through activities, to promote supportive networks as adults continue to age. These centers are developed using a build-own-lease (“BOL”) model, wherein the government purchases the site and invests in the capital costs to build the facilities, then leasing them to eldercare providers to operate and program the activities, thereby reducing the financial burden non-profit organizations must incur in terms of capital expenditure. 

 

Hardware + Software + Heartware 

As much as the ‘hardware’ (physical infrastructure) is important, Dr. Khoo emphasizes that it is also about integrating the ‘software’ (the activities and programming) and the ‘heartware’ (the care ethos) in how communities come together to care for each other as Canada transitions into a super-aged society. Developing such ‘carescapes’ is critical in planning for longevity.  

“We must plan communities in which planning goes beyond the brick and mortar, beyond the ‘hardware’; but fosters spaces where people can interact through ‘software’ and where ‘heartware’, that care and compassion becomes commonplace as part of everyday living.” - Dr. Louisa-May Khoo 

Dr. Khoo shared this heartwarming story - an older man with dementia continued his daily ritual of buying goods from a local shop, building a bond with the shopkeeper. When he stopped showing up, the shopkeeper called the man’s son, who discovered that his father had fallen at home. This everyday interaction (“software”) was made possible through thoughtful neighbourhood planning and design (“hardware”) which allowed the older man to remain aging in place, proximate to his local shops, and enabled care to happen (‘heartware’) when the shopkeeper called the son to check on his father when he felt that something was amiss. 

Singapore’s innovative housing and social models offer a roadmap for Canada and beyond. By integrating housing, services, and community connections, we can create environments where older adults don’t just live—they thrive. 

Interested in learning more? Connect with Dr. Louisa-May Khoo here.