Malaysia's aging population: Can abandoned buildings fill the eldercare gap?

KUALA LUMPUR - A few years ago, Wan Salbiah Wan Mior was looking for space to expand her care centre business. She saw an empty hotel in Section 13, one of several vacant buildings in Shah Alam, Selangor, and thought it was perfect for her needs.

Thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, the hotel had been empty for a while. It was in a good location. It had many floors and ready-made parking and was spacious.

The Zara Aisyah Care Centre founder approached local authorities with her interest, to no avail. Fast-forward to 2024. She recently drove by the hotel. It is still empty and looking more rundown than ever. It is now unlikely fit for occupation.

"It’s such a waste. Buildings are built for a purpose,” she told Bernama. "(Repurposing) these abandoned buildings would give so much impact to the community or society.”

What she had in mind was to turn these empty buildings into care centres for the elderly - those aged 65 and above.

To her, it made sense. Other than location, many of these vacant buildings tend to be roomy with plenty of space to get around. Turning them into elderly care centres seems like a no-brainer.

After all, everyone ages and will need these services sooner or later. And Malaysia desperately needs more elderly care centres as it barrels towards aged nation status by 2044, if not sooner.

That hotel was not the only vacant building Wan Salbiah tried to repurpose.

She told Bernama there was another hotel nearby which shut its doors recently.

"I made a pitch (to the owners). Let me take the building. Let me convert it, repurpose it to let it become an eldercare centre,” she said. She added she has yet to receive a response.

Wan Salbiah may not have succeeded in getting the old hotels turned into an elderly care centre so far but her attempts reflect the desperation among some care centres to find space for all the incoming elderly.

With aged society status looming, care operators and some real estate developers are shifting focus to meet the demand by utilising whatever space is available, be it in a less popular neighbourhood mall or a hotel.

But is the effort enough? More importantly, did the move come too late?

AGING TO AGED

Malaysia is already an ageing nation as its elderly population reached seven percent in 2021 and 7.4 percent in 2023, according to the Department of Statistics Malaysia.

The country’s birthrate has fallen to below the replacement rate since 2013, which has accelerated the move towards aged nation status.

At last count, Malaysia’s population stood at 34.1 million, which puts the elderly population at about 2.5 million and growing.

The United Nations categorises countries with the elderly comprising 14 percent of the population as an aged nation and 20 percent as a super-aged nation.

The World Bank has stressed the importance of nations developing a strategy to prepare for aged status.

Part of the solution is to have as many eldercare centres as possible for senior citizens, despite the cultural expectation of children caring for their aging parents.

Due to the growing number of senior citizens juxtaposed against the demands of modern life, families providing long-term care for the elderly at home make it increasingly unlikely.

Perhaps because of this cultural expectation, there are not enough eldercare centres to meet demand, said Delren Terrence Douglas, Association of Residential Aged Care Operators (AGECOPE) president.

"At the ground here, we are still not ready. Some town councils are not prepared,” he said.

Reasons for the shortage vary. One is the red tape care centre operators encounter when getting their establishments licensed and registered, and whether the property is zoned for elderly care centres.

Douglas said byzantine and unrealistic requirements are among the factors responsible for registered care centres becoming unregistered.

Another is the public’s attitude when it comes to having an old folks home in their neighbourhood.

Their resistance to an elderly care centre operating within the neighborhood makes it hard to open a facility, which has to be close to hospitals and medical services.

"Our country, our society is made up of NIMBYs - Not In My Backyard. Everybody wants care services for their grandparents but nobody wants it behind their house,” said James Tan, director and chief executive officer of Suntrack Development Sdn Bhd.

He has also worked on the property needs of the elderly and aged care in Malaysia.

At present, there are 433 elderly care centres registered with the Social Welfare Department. According to AGECOPE and other industry experts, there are an estimated 1,600 unregistered care centres for the elderly nationwide.

EFFICIENT USE OF SPACE

Another reason for the shortage is that many developers are unwilling to build senior living centres on a prime piece of real estate, unless they get a return on their investment. Most prefer to build luxury condominiums instead.

A few developers have built resort-style retirement communes and assisted-living facilities but many are out of reach of the average Malaysian elder price-wise.

Wan Salbiah said rather than just building new facilities, there should be more focus on making use of existing spaces.

"New developments are good but shouldn’t there be a balance between old and new? Make a new development while also repurposing abandoned buildings,” she said.

Part of her frustration is that she knows turning dying or vacant hotel space into eldercare centres is not that unheard of, or even new.

One of the first conversions of hotel space into senior living and eldercare facilities is the MiCasa Retirement and Recovery Village, within MiCasa Hotel and Suites, located near the Petronas Twin Towers here. Done by ReU Living, it opened in 2022 in the midst of Covid-19 restrictions. It also provides daycare services for the elderly.

ReU Living CEO Anna Chew said they had to battle preconceived notions and ignorance about the elderly and eldercare centres when they were going through the approval process.

"It was hard because being the first one, (the authorities) didn’t understand it. When they came in (to inspect) and we said, ‘OK, in this block, we’re gonna do eldercare,’ suddenly they looked at it differently and said it cannot be approved for old people because old people are all in wheelchairs,” she said.

"There’s this assumption that all old people use wheelchairs and are bed-bound.”

She added they had to change a few things such as widening the doors and adding signage in order to get approval.

Bernama reached out to the Housing and Local Government Ministry and Shah Alam City Council for comment but did not get a response by press time.

WHERE ELSE?

Since then others have attempted to turn hotels and other spaces in Kuala Lumpur and elsewhere, with some success. But whether it happens really depends on the city councils and how aware they are about issues surrounding aging and elderly care.

Petaling Jaya city councillor Terence Tan told Bernama they have received many applications to convert or repurpose vacant or dying buildings into care centres, adding there should be few problems from the Petaling Jaya City Council in approving them.

The city council came out with an action plan for the elderly earlier this year.

Terence pointed to the former EPF building in Jalan Gasing, Petaling Jaya, which will reopen as a senior living facility, as an example. Other successful examples include the conversion of budget hotels, which suffered during the Covid-19 lockdown, into confinement centres.

He said a major reason preventing converting empty or dying buildings into care centres is problems related to the ownership of the said properties.

"There are a lot of issues. Some are due to family affairs, legal tussles, this and that. So for business operators who want to get the abandoned property and pay a token, they can’t even move,” he said.

"I would love to see abandoned buildings with 20 to 30 rooms being transformed into a senior living facility.”

He added it is not too late to start preparing for aged nation status as long as serious preparations begin soon.

Other than hotels, some aged care operators have been eyeing malls to open a care centre, especially neighbourhood malls with plenty of space but lesser foot traffic than the big malls.

Co-owner of Amerin Mall in Seri Kembangan, Selangor, Aaron Lim aims to have a care centre and daycare centre for the elderly in his mall.

He said the idea is to make it a hybrid daycare and care centre for the elderly, a place for them to spend their day with others while their children are at work.

He told Bernama the centres are now undergoing the approval process from the local council.

"Hopefully we will get approval by September. If we get approval, we can start doing renovations in October,” he said, adding it should take about two months to complete the work and adapt the space for the elderly.

Lim said since the mall is attached to an apartment complex with a swimming pool and recreational area, senior citizens may be able to access the facilities at specific times.

Suntrack Development’s James, who is also the former chairman of the Retirement Village and Aged Care Subcommittee under the Real Estate and Housing Developers Association, described opening an elderly care centre and senior daycare centre as "perfect”.

"That’s really great as a concept. Because it allows interactions between communities, you don’t segregate the senior citizens, you keep the seniors active walking around the mall seeing real people, young children and so forth,” he said, adding Malaysia should follow the example of Singapore’s Kampung Admiralty, a multi-generational living space concept that has an eldercare centre located next to a kindergarten amid plenty of green space.

Repurposing and using available spaces efficiently could go a long way in easing the shortage of eldercare facilities. But experts say one of the best ways to deal with the shortage of eldercare centres may be as easy as requiring some changes to the design of homes in Malaysia -- to assist Malaysians to age at home, and have them go to an eldercare centre only when their care needs become too high.

"Get this. Some people are transferred to nursing homes because their homes are not suitable for aging in place (due to facilities such as Asian toilets),” James said.

As such, he added, it is important that multi-generational homes and community integration be part of the community’s strategy for ageing.

"Build homes suitable for aging in place. Do the community a favour,” he said. - BERNAMA