Aside from your home being fit for aging in place, some of the other reasons that seniors may decide to leave their home are loneliness, inability to maintain the home and concern re safety. The Canada Home Share Program is one way to deal with some of the issues mentioned above; as well it brings in extra income and helps provide more affordable housing. Under Canada Home Share Program older adults share their home with post secondary adults and sometimes other older adults. This program is currently offered in Toronto and Kingston.
Deciding where to move as well as when to move are both very personal decisions. Both depend on the criteria that are important to you as well as your individual situation (health, finances, family etc). Looking at the living situations of my friends and acquaintances there is a broad range of scenarios – some have decided to leave the Toronto and move somewhere smaller or less expensive such as Collingwood, Peterborough, Calgary, Canmore or a cottage; others have sold their family home and rent in Toronto while travelling or living outside Canada. The key point is that you have to figure out what works best for you at the current time, recognizing that what is best now may not be best later.
There are many ways to decide where to move. Two things to consider are cities that rank high on liveability and age friendly communities (“AFC”).
The Globe and Mail’s 2023 edition of “Canada’s Most Liveable Cities” collected data on 439 Canadian cities with respect to 10 factors including healthcare, safety, transport and climate. The ranking of the cities depends on how you prioritize the criteria. If you compare the Globe and Mail’s best places to retire in Canada with other articles such as one prepared by Made in CAhttps://madeinca.ca/best-places-to-retire-in-canada/, they both have different cities on the list For instance the Globe’s top five cities for retirement are all in BC; Ontario cities include Oakville (13), Lambton shores (18) and Burlington (19). Whereas Made in CA lists top Ontario cities as Kingston and Ottawa. In the past Money Sense has also published articles on the best places to retire. They also publish a list of the best places to buy real estate in Canada. If you are looking for a more affordable place to relocate to, you might want to have a look at their list. In their 2024 list, the top places three places to buy are Greater Moncton N.B, St John N.B., and Sault Ste Marie; the 2023 benchmark price for each was at least $400,000 below the national average. https://www.moneysense.ca/spend/real-estate/where-to-buy-real-estate-in-canada/
The development of Age-Friendly Communities (AFC) is a work in progress. This program funded by the Ministry for Seniors and Accessibility and is a partnership between a few universities and the Centre for Studies in Aging and Health. The objective is to develop communities conducive to healthy aging.
Ontario AFCI’s are broken down into 3 size categories; population less than 30K (yellow), population 30K to 99,999 as purple and population greater than 100K (green). As well various aspects of the cities are evaluated (referred to as domains; framework for the 8 domains was developed by the WHO). Some domains include “community support and health services”, transportation, “social participation” and Housing. Examples of AFCs include Guelph (green-large), City of Peterborough (blue -medium size) and the municipality of Port Hope (yellow/orange – small); these 3 locations are all listed under the attached link shows AFC’s by size as well as ones that are strong in various domains.
The above resources may provide some guidance about where you might want to live and whether you want to stay in Toronto. It is also useful talking to friends and family who have moved out of Toronto regarding their experience living outside Toronto. Lastly, if there is a place (or places) you are considering it is worth doing a “test drive” to see what you think. Ideally it would be good to stay in the community of interest, possibly at an Airbnb to get a sense of what the community feels like when living there.