# Dutch Retirement Home Offers Students Free Rent For Time Spent With Elderly Residents



## Matt Derrick (Apr 16, 2015)

*Dutch Retirement Home Offers Students Free Rent For Time Spent With Elderly Residents*

http://www.boredpanda.com/student-dorm-edlerly-retirement-home-deventer-humanitas/

Humanitas, a social service organization in the Netherlands, has come up with a brilliant model for helping students with their expenses and the elderly with the care and social interaction that they need to remain physically and psychologically healthy. In return for free lodging at a retirement home in the Dutch town of Deventer, six students will spend at least 30 hours a month with the 160 elderly residents living there, doing anything from helping prepare their meals and shopping with/for them to teaching them to use computers or even paint street art!

The program, spearheaded by Humanitas Deventer CEO Gea Sijpkes, has inspired social organizations elsewhere in Europe to explore similar opportunities as well!

More info: humanitas.nl | Facebook | Twitter (h/t: mymodernmet, thejournal)

*Students get free housing for spending time with elders at the retirement home*




*The students spend at least 30 hours a month eating, talking, shopping or even playing games with them*




*“It’s important not to isolate the elderly from the outside world,” said Gea Sijpkes, Humanitas Deventer CEO*




*“When you’re 96 years old with a knee problem, well, the knee isn’t going to get any better…”*




*“But what we can do is create an environment where you forget about the painful knee”*


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## Kim Chee (Apr 16, 2015)

We need government sponsored social programs like this in the U.S., I have been thinking this was the way to go for quite sometime.

Congrats to the Dutch for being on the leading edge of how to get things done!


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## Tude (Apr 17, 2015)

That is pretty damn cool!!


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## etpyh (Apr 17, 2015)

Pretty common in europe I guess, there are several places offering free rent in exchange for some help with disabled persons for example where I come from.


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## Odin (Apr 17, 2015)

Countries like this are the closest to what I would call civilized. 
That is the best. 
Lodging while getting educated for helping the elderly?
ALL OF THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. 
America is great... but in ways savage. I wonder if there is anything close like this in the states...


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