Business View - August 2015 181
Group, the Sustainable Operational Models Working
Group, and the Health Collaboration Working Group,
and work to drive change and best practices within the
industry. ASCHA’s annual Convention and Trade show
is the largest gathering of seniors housing leaders in
western Canada. This past spring, 300 housing pro-
vider representatives were in attendance, as were 100
product and service providers.
Soon, over 20 percent of Alberta’s population will be
seniors, and Martin-Lindsay is looking ahead. “We
need to look at how we serve the aging population
differently,” she states. “We need to look at aging in
community. I see an expanding role for housing provid-
ers, being a bit more of the hub, and bringing together
those that provide other services in their communities,
whether it’s meals on wheels, transportation, house-
keeping, you name it. Because their future customers
are those who are now living in their own homes - lone-
ly, isolated and often struggling, and at tremendous
risk. So I also see an expanded role of reaching out,
not just from a health perspective, but from a wellness
perspective. And that’s where we really need to be fo-
cusing our energies.”
In representing Alberta’s seniors and their housing
providers for the past half century, ASCHA has also
achieved what Martin-Lindsay claims to have been a
major shift in the public’s perception of seniors hous-
ing: “We’ve really changed the stigma from ‘old folks
homes’ to a place where people can come and really
live well.”
HEALTHCARE
