Dutch Retirement Home Gave Students Free Rent for Company

A Dutch retirement home let university students live rent-free in exchange for hanging out with the older residents.

The program ran at Humanitas in Deventer, Netherlands, and PBS NewsHour profiled it on April 5, 2015. Students received small apartments at no cost, with a stated minimum of 30 hours a month spent with the seniors.

Humanitas head Gea Sijpkes described the students as “good neighbors” in an email to PBS NewsHour.

The idea started with a student. Onno Selbach contacted Sijpkes about poor conditions and noise in student housing, and the program began after that.

Who lived there

Six students from the nearby universities Saxion and Windesheim lived in the building when PBS reported on it. About 160 seniors lived there too.

The students could come and go as they pleased. The house rule was blunt: “Do not be a nuisance to the elderly.”

The time with residents was far from formal. Students watched sports with them and celebrated their birthdays, and they kept residents company when they were ill.

The arrangement was volunteer work rather than paid employment, Nonprofit Quarterly reported.

The deal paired rent-free student housing with regular social contact for older residents. It aimed to ease student housing difficulties and make the care home a more socially connected place.

What it looked like up close

SBS News followed one pairing. Student Jordi Pronk spent time with Joke Kerdijk, an 86-year-old resident.

The two sang, played music and talked together.

SBS also reported that the headline number was looser than it sounded. “The 30 hours of voluntary work is just a matter of speech, as those 30 hours are not monitored,” the outlet reported.