# Dutch Retirement Home Offers Free Rent to Students for Quality Time Spent with Residents



## SeaBreeze (Apr 10, 2015)

Helping students pay expenses and care for the residents.  http://www.boredpanda.com/student-dorm-edlerly-retirement-home-deventer-humanitas/




> Humanitas, a social service organization in the Netherlands, has come up with a brilliant model for helping students with their expenses and the elderly with the care and social interaction that they need to remain physically and psychologically healthy.
> 
> In return for free lodging at a retirement home in the Dutch town of Deventer, six students will spend at least 30 hours a month with the 160 elderly residents living there, doing anything from helping prepare their meals and shopping with/for them to teaching them to use computers or even paint street art!
> 
> The program, spearheaded by Humanitas Deventer CEO Gea Sijpkes, has inspired social organizations elsewhere in Europe to explore similar opportunities as well!


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## Warrigal (Apr 10, 2015)

The Dutch are very forward thinking people.


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## Kitties (Apr 11, 2015)

Yes, Europe usually is. My mother would often say that. This won't happen here in the USA. A dental hygienist I had told me she wanted to go to nursing homes to help with oral hygiene. The red tape made her stop trying. Everything here always has to be too complicated to work.


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## Jackie22 (Apr 13, 2015)

What a great idea....forward thinking indeed.


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## caregiverrelief (Apr 13, 2015)

I love this idea. The quaker community in Lansdale, Pa has intergenerational living on their campus. They encourage the day care and senior care to visit. They have glass around both programs, so the seniors can see the kiddies play. We need to see more of this interaction of youth with the aging seniors.


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## Ameriscot (Apr 13, 2015)

Dame Warrigal said:


> The Dutch are very forward thinking people.



Yes, they are.


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