Elderly residents and college students benefit from combined housing

Pablo Picasso once said “youth has no age,” and an elderly home in the Netherlands might be proving this to true by creating a unique intergenerational living environment for senior residents and young students.

The Humanitas Retirement Home in Deventer, Netherlands is home to residents who are mostly over the age of 80. However, the elderly home also houses six university students who live rent-free in exchange for 30 hours of volunteering a month in the home.

Jurrien Mentink, a 21-year-old student living in the elderly home, said he enjoys interacting with the senior residents and getting to know each of them personally.

“I bring the outside in, so my world becomes their world,” Mentink said in an interview with NPR. “So things I learn in college, I try to tell that story to my neighbor so they can keep up a little bit.”

The idea sprung from the creativity of Gea Sijpkes, the director of Humanitas Retirement Home, who wanted to start a project where neighbors of diverse generations could interact and learn from one another. The students bring youthful energy and life into the nursing home as the senior residents offer wisdom and perspective to the lives of the students.

The students are allowed to go about their business, having friends over and staying up as late as they need to study or socialize. The senior residents go to sleep early, usually with television volumes blaring, but they try to tell stories and speak truth into the lives of the students.

Although Oklahoma Christian University’s decision to gradually transition the Tealridge Retirement Community into student housing was an economic decision, the staff hope residents will experience similar benefits to that of the community in the Netherlands.

The Tealridge is a large independent living complex designed for retired elderly individuals or married couples that wish to live in a community environment.

Jay Jones, manager of Tealridge, is in charge of the transition from senior housing to student housing.

“It started out originally as a temporary placement, but it looked like an interesting intergenerational experiment,” Jones said. “It’s worked fairly well up to this point as we currently have 81 seniors and around 60 students residing at Tealridge.”

The transfer of students from on-campus housing in the apartments and dorms into Tealridge has primarily targeted married couples and international students.

Tealridge is working to bridge the generational gap by providing opportunities for Oklahoma Christian students and senior residents to interact.

Quinn Fields, a senior student at Oklahoma Christian, works at breakfast in the dining room at Tealridge, and said he is passionate about the exchange of benefits possible for both students and seniors.

“It benefits the elderly people to not feel as isolated from the rest of the world,” Fields said. “It can also be good for the younger people because it takes them out of their little world where school is the biggest problem. It helps them to think about what these people are dealing with and it can provide a good perspective for them.”

A few of the student residents work in the dining room, at the front desk or with maintenance for the housing complex. On Monday evenings, Tealridge has an organized game of bingo offered for both residents and students.

“As we’ve executed the transition, there has been benefits to both seniors and students,” Jones said. “Early on we had two couples married who had been married 70 plus years. For a young, married couple to have the opportunity to visit with a couple that has been married that long, there is opportunity to learn.”

There are eight senior couples living at Tealridge. It’s up to the students and the seniors for how much or how little they interact.

Oklahoma Christian student Abbie Coplin, lives with her husband Dillion at Tealridge and said she feels there is still a separation between the elderly and student residents.

“They’re so nice, but this is their home and I feel like were invading a little bit,” Coplin said. “Every time we see an older person they smile and say hello. You can tell that they want to talk but we don’t always have the time to interact and chat on a daily basis.”

The gap that remains among the generations is attributed by many of the students as a difference in schedules. This fall, more single students will be moving into Tealridge, providing a real test of the intergenerational community.

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