Renate Krause, left, 83, and Sybille Hahn, 67, pose with Dr. Kenneth McAlister at Hesperus Village, which is a retirement building comprised of rent-based-on-income and affordable housing units.
Photo: Matthew Sherwood/for The Toronto Star

Senior home thinks ‘outside the box’

By David Hayes, Toronto Star, January 28, 2012

 At Hesperus Village, an affordable housing facility for seniors in Richmond Hill, I’m having lunch with Renate Krause and a number of her fellow tenants in a communal second floor dining room.

It’s a homey spot off the kitchen in what is known as Hesperus I — the original building that was opened in 1987 — with sunny yellow walls and two country-style tables, although construction is nearly finished on a much larger dining area in the new addition called Hesperus II.

The food is several notches above standard institutional fare, with a choice offered each day. (Chicken or vegetarian on Tuesday, for example, and fish or vegetarian on Saturday.) Today, being Thursday, it’s red meat or vegetarian and my stew is delicious. “We eat very well here,” Krause tells me, “and it’s nice to get together with people over a meal.”

In my last column, I wrote about Hesperus Village and its roots in the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner who, among other things, founded the Waldorf education system which focuses on the “body, soul and spirit of children.” (Hesperus Village is located on the campus of the 42-year-old Toronto Waldorf School.) Although unaligned with any specific religion, Hesperus Village reflects Steiner’s spiritual and philosophical views — a humanistic approach to caring for one another within a community.

After lunch, I sit with Krause, who is 83, in her bright 600-square-foot one-bedroom with its tiny, landscaped terrace overlooking the south parking lot. (“I can see everyone who is coming and going,” she says, laughing.) Like every unit in Hesperus Village, it has some unexpected angles that give it the feeling of a European cottage, an effort to make living quarters less box-like even though doing so adds slightly to the building costs.

Krause, who has white hair and sparkling blue eyes, is smartly dressed in a navy blue skirt, flowered blouse and blue and red striped jacket. Originally from Germany, she came to Toronto in 1952, when she was in her early 20s. She went to university in Alberta, got a teaching certificate, returned to Toronto and taught for a decade in the public school system. She married a fellow teacher, Helmut Krause, and together they visited Germany in 1965 to study the teachings of Rudolf Steiner. Back in Canada, they became teachers at The Waldorf School and were present when Hesperus was being built.

Her husband died in 1994 and Krause eventually moved to an apartment not far from Hesperus Village. Once, after having surgery, she was invited to recuperate at Hesperus in a guest unit. Shortly thereafter, she decided to move in.

“I knew quite a few people from the Waldorf community and I met others when I stayed here after my surgery,” she says. “The apartment was small but I felt right at home.”

Later, I walked around Hesperus II with Sybille Hahn, a resident and Hesperus Village’s volunteer coordinator. She’s a short 67-year-old with a kind face, wearing a brown top over black pinstriped trousers, her hair is in a bun with glasses perched on top. At one point she shows me her watercolour collages that hang in a hallway between Hesperus I and II.

The new building, she explains, connects to the west wall of Hesperus I and is divided into three pods, each with plenty of windows and, in addition to the one- and two-bedroom units, an atrium, social areas, a few small common balconies and the site of a new, expanded clinic, which is under constructed.

As a single mother of two after her marriage ended, she worked as an accountant in the private sector before moving into the non-profit sector. (For the Canadian Hearing Society, the March of Dimes and an Etobicoke-based home support program.) Early on, she decided that education was so important she would find the funds to put both her son and daughter through the private Waldorf system.

Eventually she was recruited to sit on the Hesperus board and later hired as project coordinator when Hesperus II was started.

“I came on board at a slightly reduced salary but the kids were old enough not to need so much support,” says Hahn. “And I moved into an apartment here, paying full market rent, of course.”

She’s just moved from an apartment in Hesperus I to a one-bedroom in Hesperus II. It has parquet hardwood floors and a large living area with plenty of light (windows face south and east) and a view of the ravine on the building’s south side.

“It might seem unusual that we have so many two-bedrooms here,” she says. “Most social housing for seniors is built with bachelors and one bedrooms. But we thought old age could be a time of sharing an apartment again. We have mothers and daughters on our waiting list and a couple with a grown son who would sometimes stay with them. Or there could be sisters or a couple of seniors who are friends and would be willing to share.

“It’s like why we wanted the walls not to be perfectly square in all the apartments. Square rooms lead to inside-the-box thinking. At Hesperus, we try to break out of that.”

For more information, go to www.hesperus.ca.

Hesperus Village encourages good nutrition, friendships and activities (both mental and physical) in aesthetically lovely surroundings as a tonic to the challenges of old age, says Dr. Kenneth McAlister.         Photo: Matthew Sherwood/for The Toronto Star

Aging in place is simple at Hesperus Village

By David Hayes, Toronto Star, January 14, 2012

Getting to Hesperus Village, an affordable housing complex for seniors in Vaughan, feels like a drive into the country. Just north of Highway 7, I turn off Bathurst St. and drive along a two-lane road winding down into a valley, over a small bridge and up again past the Toronto Waldorf School’s unusual polygonal structure. Past the school there’s a wooded ravine in which the East Don River flows and a small farm where children play with the resident goats. Across a big, open field I can see Hesperus Village’s pair of fused, lowrise buildings.

Founded in 1987, Hesperus has 77 units — 17 bachelors, one- and two-bedrooms suites in the original facility (Hesperus I) and 70 one- and two-bedrooms units in an expansion that is nearly completed (Hesperus II). Half of the units in both Hesperus I and II are rent geared to income (RGI), set at 30 per cent of the tenant’s income, and the rest are restricted to 80 per cent of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.’s average rent.

Due to slight difference in public funding, to qualify for Hesperus I residents must be 61 or older with a maximum annual family income of $40,000; for Hesperus II, 65 or older with a maximum annual family income of $80,000. (There is a waiting list of about 120 people and units open up infrequently.)

All of the units are designed to be easy for seniors to get around as they age and some are specially equipped for those with disabilities. The complex also includes a communal dining area (there are small kitchenettes in the units for those who wish to eat in their apartments), social areas and an in-house medical clinic where four family physicians and several therapists are available.

One of doctors, Ken McAlister, is also president of Hesperus’ board. We’re sitting in the soon-to-be-completed communal dining room in Hesperus II, which will double as a function hall where everything from meetings to speaker’s nights will be held.

“We strongly encourage people to move here when they’re healthy and active,” says McAlister. “Then they can actively participate in the community, make new friends and get oriented. So, when the inevitable wounds of old age hit, they’re already in place.

“Many people choose to stay in their homes as they get older but then, when they break a hip or have a stroke and have to move, they’re not dealing with illness and injury but with a traumatic change in their environment.”

McAlister is a clean-shaven, youthful-looking 62 year old. Although he’s sometimes given to prosaisms — “as human beings we’re perfectly imperfect” and “an animal can’t be more animal but a human can be more human” — his message is sound. Hesperus encourages good nutrition, friendships and activities (both mental and physical) in aesthetically lovely surroundings as a tonic to the challenges of old age.

“And there’s a spiritual dimension,” adds McAlister. “Not in the sense of ideology, dogma or creed. I mean spirit as defined as opening yourself to the mystery of what’s going on around us.”

The founders of Hesperus were inspired by the teachings of Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, who, in the early 20th century developed a world view called anthroposophy, a fusion of science and mysticism. In an effort to ground his ideas in the real world, he founded the Waldorf Schools with their emphasis on an interdisciplinary, humanistic approach to education. Building Hesperus on the campus of the 42-year-old Toronto Waldorf School reflected Steiner’s ideal of all ages mixing in intergenerational communities. (First seen as a seniors’ facility for retired Waldorf teachers, it soon opened to anyone, especially as it expanded.)

Steiner also encouraged the use of near-transparent layers of coloured paint in buildings to create an effect he described as being able to “spiritually pass through the walls.” (This became what is today known as lazure painting, a feature incorporated into both Hesperus I and II.) He created a kind of performance art called eurythmy, which evolved into a form of movement therapy as well as anthroposophical medicine, which McAlister practices, that integrates mainstream medicine with homeopathic approaches.

“I embrace conventional medicine wholeheartedly but its parameters are restricted to the reductionist model,” says McAlister. “I think there are different ways of working scientifically than just a statistically-driven model.”

As we talk about the potential for people to age more gracefully in a community where they are supported and encouraged to remain active and engaged in the world, McAlister pauses and stares for a moment out the window at what will eventually become an organic garden.

“Don’t let anyone tell you growing old is easy,” he finally says. “It’s not for wimps. But there are things you can attain in old age, an ability to see the vastness of life, a shedding of old habits that held you back, an understanding of your humanness. You can’t come to that kind of understanding at any other stage in life.”

Our new facility (Hesperus II) will contain a congregate dining room, an expanded medical office for Pegasus Therapeutics and will be the new home to over 60 elderly community members.  Our partnerships with other community organizations, such as Canadian Mental Health Association, Yellow Brick House, and East Sandgate and Regional Municipality of York Region have strengthened us. 

Thanks to a grant from the Home Depot Foundation of Canada, as well as a grant from the Social Housing Retrofit and Renovation Program, Hesperus I has also hummed with the sounds of drills and hammers.  New windows were installed in select apartments and a connection to municipal water have been a few of the upgrades made to this beautiful building as well.

The organization continues to restructure as we prepare for the growth.  The realization of the capital fundraising goal is still a primary objective.  There are many ways for people to contribute to the growth of Hesperus.  Please contact Pina Corigliano to find out more.