Flat repairs bring smile back among elderly
Print Edition
IN modern-day Shanghai, the century-old apartments that have managed to elude decades of urban redevelopment often evoke romantic nostalgia – until you have to live in one. Residents living in them are senior citizens who don’t have the money to do repairs, maintenance and upgrading. Many live in untidy, sometimes hazardous conditions.
That used to be the case for Li Jinmei, a 72-year-old spinster who has been living for 23 years with her sister in an 80-year-old residential building on Huangdu Road in the Hongkou District.
The sisters, living on a combined monthly pension of 4,000 yuan (US$614), couldn’t afford to fix the dingy kitchen, archaic plumbing and wiring, and crumbling floor tiles in their home, much less install a shower or get rid of the rats. Their living conditions were primitive, to say the least, in modern-day terms. That’s all changed now, thanks to a 4-year-old municipal program earmarking public welfare lottery revenue to renovate 4,000 older residences in the city.
The fund for each residence amounts to tens of thousands yuan.
“The rats are gone, along with the tangled, dangling electric wires that used to hang from the ceiling,” said Li, noting that she can take a shower at home for the first time in her life. “I didn’t really expect everything to change like this. The facelift of my home has really brightened my mood.”
The home rehabilitation program has also been a boon to Wang Huiling, 36, who is sight impaired and has been living with her 72-year-old mother in an old residential complex on Dongtiyuhui Road for 30 years.
Prior to the renovation of their home, Wang was forever tripping over things at home. “My legs used to be covered with bruises because our home was a bit of a shambles, and if I tried to move without my mother guiding me, I always ran into things,” she said.
Their small apartment, comprising one bedroom, a kitchen and bathroom, has been outfitted with nonslip ceramic tiles on the floors. The sharp edges of the kitchen countertop have been rounded, a sliding door has been installed to replace a hinged door to make more room, and the clumsy bathtub has been replaced with a walk-in shower.
Gu Lifeng, general manager of Shanghai Hongfang Building Decoration Engineering Co, which won the government renovation contract in the Hongkou District, said more than 200 homes have been refurbished in the past four years to make them safer and more comfortable.
“Warm colors are preferred,” he said. “In a kitchen, high cabinets are eliminated so that elderly people don’t face the risk of falling when trying to reach things. And in a bathroom, a shower curtain is better than a glass door because it’s less slippery.”
In Hongkou, Wanxia Xinyuan, or literally “garden of love in the afterglow,” is a non-governmental organization entrusted to oversee the renovation program. But older residents can sometimes be surly about proposed renovation, often changing their minds once plans have been set.
“Sometimes when our workers are moving things around in an apartment, the elderly residents worry out loud about them stealing things,” Gu said. “I always advise workers to be sympathetic and not to do anything that might provoke these people.”
Although his company’s contract provides free follow-up maintenance for one year, Gu said those services have been extended to cover any problems since the program started.
Local officials told Shanghai Daily that staff working in the renovation program sometimes get frustrated by troublesome, often trivial communications with the elderly residents.
“Most residents are thankful because they no longer feel isolated in the community due to their hardship living conditions,” said Qu Limeng, director of the Huangdu Road Residents’ Committee.
An old apartment can be rehabilitated, but better living space doesn’t automatically mean a better life for the elderly. An architect, surnamed Sun, is program coordinator at the Shanghai Office of Habitat for Humanity China, which has renovated more than 180 households of elderly people since 2009. He said some of the residents are still lonely and despondent even in their new surroundings.
“For those who live alone, what they really need is more people visiting them and talking to them,” Sun said. “We found that some people simply relapse into their messy former lives a few years after their homes are renovated and tidied up. Old habits are hard to break.”
He Xiaolei, an official working on care for senior citizens in the Quyang Road neighborhood where 49 homes have been renovated in the past four years, said he is trying to address those corollary problems.
“Home rehabilitation needs to be looked at as just a first step,” he said.
“Once we make these old homes safer and more comfortable, we need to do follow-up work, like educating residents on the safe use of home appliances. Many of these people have other problems in their lives that need attention.”
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