A growing number of Canadians is aging alone, without immediate family members to help them with daily tasks or offer emotional support. These kinless Canadians are facing many challenges and more needs to be done to ensure they don’t fall through the cracks, experts say.
"Never before have so many people grown old, without traditional family around them," Laura Tamblyn Watts, CEO of CanAge, an organization focused on helping older adults in Canada, told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview."Sometimes, it can also mean people have lived longer and have outlived all of their connections."
Stainsby told CTVNews.ca in an interview, Sopel called her in November during a fall because she has no one else. Aging, kinless people may also face legal difficulties without a family member to take on power of attorney duties if they become unable to make important decisions for themselves. People can hire a trust company to be the default decision-maker, but very few do that, Watts said.
"And that's the place most people don't want to be, and the government doesn't want you there either.”