Ageing-in-Place for Low-Income Seniors: Living at the Intersection of Multiple Identities, Positionalities, and Oppressions

Ageing-in-place refers to the ability to live in one’s own home and community safely, independently, and comfortably regardless of age, income, or ability level. Often, ageing-in-place is assumed to be a positive experience; however, home is not always a positive place and can be perceived as prison-like or a burdensome environment. For older, ethno-cultural groups in Canada, acquiring adequate, comfortable housing is a challenge, especially when living with limited financial resources and lacking social and cultural capital. Using a community-based participatory research approach and a Multidimensional Intersectionality Framework, this chapter problematizes dominant, positive ageing-in-place policy discourses and provides experiential data to inform place-based policy directives for enabling older people to age well at home and in the right place. Policy implications of this work include further developing current understandings of sense-of-place that emphasize community participation, wellbeing, and nuanced experiences of older people.