The pleasure of eating has no age. The private residences for retirees who have understood this give themselves the air of luxury hotels with their refined meals served in a warm atmosphere. If the quality of the menus is worthy of good restaurants, the addition can however raise eyebrows.
Posted at 6:30 a.m.
Line’s mother, who is 85, loves her residence, where she reads quietly for a good part of the day. She hardly ever leaves her apartment, except to go to the restaurant on the ground floor. Daily.
She is obsessed with this little outing that allows her to move, to socialize too. This soul food is almost as important as the food on your plate. In his bowl, should I say. Because the lady is never very hungry, so she is satisfied with a soup, with a roll and two squares of butter. Every evening. For years.
The problem? He is billed for the full table d’hôte.
Cost in 2021: $18.50, for a total of $555 per month… of 30 soups. This year, the menu price has increased to $19.73. Monthly, the bill will therefore reach $592. That’s more than $7,200 for its 365 soups. “That’s a good income for the residence!” », quips Line.
His residence prides itself on having a restaurant-worthy chef, staff, and menu, but when it comes time to pay, restaurant rules no longer apply. Even if you only order the starter, you must pay the price of the table d’hôte.
Line tried several times to negotiate an arrangement with the owner, Groupe Maurice, without success, she tells me. “Management’s lack of flexibility with regard to billing is hurting my mother when she could use the money ‘given’ to the kitchen to have support services at home. »
The 33 residences of Groupe Maurice all operate in this way. The restaurants do not sell à la carte food there, because “it is not their vocation” and that “makes management enormously easier”, explains the spokesperson, Sarah Ouellette. Residents, however, have access to a convenience store that sells sandwiches and ready-to-eat meals to take away.
In the industry of private residences for seniors (RPA), this way of organizing meals is very widespread. This simplifies logistics, avoids the management of multiple different invoices and reduces food waste by ensuring better predictability, they argue. The restaurateurs, however, manage to deal with the total freedom enjoyed by their customers…
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As a general rule, residents can add the cost of meals directly to their lease. Monthly programs including one, two or three meals are offered. Booklets of coupons redeemable for tables d’hôte are also sold.
According to Logis Retraite, a platform that supports seniors looking for a residence, the average price of a program including one meal a day is around $380 per month. Per unit, prices range from $13.50 to $19.25 depending on the quality, type of residence and geographic location, explains its general manager, Alexandre Gagnon.
The advantage of the monthly program included in the rent is twofold: not only are the meals not taxable, but they also give rise to the provincial tax credit for home support for seniors. This is not the case for coupon books.
The important thing when looking for the RPA of your dreams is to clearly establish your dietary needs and preferences, to ask lots of questions and to take notes. Because unfortunately, the sites do not specify almost anything. The types of formulas offered, the prices, the menus, none of that is specified, which complicates the work of comparison.
PHOTO FROM THE RETIREMENT SELECTION WEBSITE
Sélection Retraite residence located in Mont-Royal
In addition, there is not necessarily uniformity within the properties of the same owner. As for Sélection Retraite, which has 45 complexes, one meal a day is provided for in the vast majority of leases, says spokesperson Claude, André Mayrand. But other formulas exist. And “some” of the group’s RPAs make it possible to order à la carte items.
Seniors shopping for a new roof ask a lot of questions about meals, says Geneviève Farmer, director of customer experience at Bonjour Résidences, another housing search platform. But it is very risky to want to generalize, she insists. Each RPA makes its own rules. In some cases, meal programs are mandatory since residents do not have a kitchen. “In a residence with 10 rooms, it’s not the same as in another with 150 apartments. »
The good news, according to Bonjour Résidences, is that RPAs are particularly flexible these days. They want to reduce their vacancy rate because “a third or a quarter of the units are vacant”. Since the start of the pandemic, many seniors have delayed their move, either for fear of contracting COVID-19 there, or because the recreational menu is far from that presented in advertisements.
This story of a soup bill that reaches $7,200 a year may be an extreme case, but it demonstrates the importance of shopping around for your home according to your needs and habits. It also illustrates the unpleasant limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach.