A plain language guide to the renovations, the government credits, and the financial conversations worth having before you need them.
I can remember the first time that my two sisters and our dad had the discussion about him someday leaving his home, the home that he had purchased with my mom in 1960s, the home that they raised the three of us in. The only home that he knew for decades and decades. We were at the cottage, where we thought the conversation would be easier.
One of us asked him, as gently as we could, whether he had thought about where he might want to live after the house. If he had thought about what came next? He looked at us the way only a parent can, with a mixture of patience and mild indignation, and said that what came next was another cold beer.
Not exactly a success.
The compromise was that me and a buddy installed grab bars in my dad’s shower and beside his toilet. That was the extent of our home renovations, and they did help a lot. For a few years at least, before a fall while he was at home alone forced our hand. And his. He eventually did move out of his home and into an extended care facility.
The point is that this is not always an easy discussion to have or even bring up. Some families are already in the hard version of this conversation, a parent who needs to move, a home that is no longer safe, and a decision that cannot wait much longer. If that is where you are right now, this article is not for that moment, and I say that with genuine respect for how difficult that moment is. There is no easy roadmap for it, and anyone who tells you otherwise has not lived it. I’m sending you all a huge hug.
This article is for the family that still has time. The parent who is healthy and independent and wants to stay that way. The adult child who would rather have this conversation now, around a kitchen table, than later, in a waiting room. Because the best time to plan for aging in place is always before you need to. And most Canadians who want to stay in their homes as they age, and the majority do, have not yet made a plan that would actually make it possible.
This is a place to start.
The Decision More Canadians Are Making
According to surveys conducted across Canada in recent years, the overwhelming majority of older Canadians, some estimates put it as high as nine in ten, say they would prefer to stay in their own home as they age rather than move into a retirement residence or long term care facility. That number is not surprising to anyone who has had this conversation with a parent or grandparent. Home is not just an address. It is a neighbourhood, a routine, a yard, a chair by a window, and forty years of ordinary mornings that add up to something irreplaceable.
And yet the gap between that preference and an actual plan is, for most Canadian families, still wide open.
Wanting to stay home is a feeling. Staying home successfully is a plan. The families who navigate aging in place well are almost always the ones who started thinking about it early, asked the right questions, and made some deliberate decisions about their home, their support network, and their finances while they still had the luxury of choosing rather than reacting.
The good news is that Canada has more tools available to help with this than most people realize. The even better news is that none of them require you to have everything figured out before you begin. You just have to begin.
Five Questions Worth Asking Before You Decide
Aging in place is not the right choice for every person or every home, and part of planning well is being honest about that. These questions are not meant to discourage anyone. They are meant to help you think clearly about where you are today and what you might need tomorrow.
Is your home on one level, or could it be?
Stairs are the single biggest physical barrier to aging in place successfully. A home where the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and main entrance are all on one floor is dramatically easier to adapt than a two storey house where daily life requires climbing. If your home has a main floor that could support single level living with some reorganization or renovation, that is worth knowing now.
What does your support network look like?
Independence at home does not mean doing everything alone. It means having the right people and services around you. Do you have family nearby? A doctor you trust and can get to easily? Neighbours who would notice if something seemed off? Aging in place works best when it is not done in isolation, and the strength of your support network is one of the most honest measures of whether it is realistic.
What happens if your health changes suddenly?
This is the question most people skip, and the one that matters most. A fall at home (like our own father had), a diagnosis, a surgery with a long recovery, these things happen, and they happen without warning. Does your home have the flexibility to accommodate a temporary or permanent change in your mobility? Does your financial plan have room for the cost of in-home care if you need it? Thinking through the what-if scenarios while you are healthy is not pessimistic. It is exactly what planning looks like.
Have you talked to your family about this?
Not a hint. Not a vague mention. An actual conversation, with the people who love you, about what you want, what you have thought through, and what you would need from them. The families who handle aging in place well almost always got there through honest conversation. The ones who struggle often do so in silence that nobody meant to create.
Do you know what financial tools are available to you?
Most Canadians are unaware that the federal government offers meaningful tax credits specifically designed to help fund the renovations that make aging in place possible. We will cover those in detail shortly, but the simple answer to this question is that there is likely more help available than you think.
Making the Home Work: A Room by Room Guide
The good news about most aging in place renovations is that they do not require starting from scratch. In the majority of cases, a well-built home can be adapted thoughtfully and incrementally, starting with the changes that matter most and adding others over time. A good occupational therapist can assess both your needs and your home and give you a personalized starting point. That consultation is almost always worth the cost, because there is no one size fits all answer and the right changes for one person’s home and one person’s body are not necessarily the right changes for another.
That said, here are the areas that come up most consistently, and the kinds of changes that tend to make the biggest difference.
The Entryway: Getting In and Out Safely
This is where aging in place begins and ends, literally. A home you cannot enter and exit safely and independently is a home that will cause problems sooner rather than later. If there are steps at the front or side entrance, a ramp or a small porch lift can make an enormous difference. Widening the exterior doorway to accommodate a walker or wheelchair is a project worth considering even before it feels necessary. Good lighting at all entry points and a secure handrail on any steps are the simplest and least expensive changes you can make, and often among the most impactful.
The Bathroom: Where Safety Matters Most
The bathroom is where the majority of household falls occur, and it is the room that most directly determines how long someone can live independently. Grab bars beside the toilet and inside the shower are non-negotiable and far less expensive than most people expect. A walk-in shower with a zero threshold entry removes one of the most common fall hazards in the home. A comfort height toilet reduces the strain of sitting and standing. A handheld showerhead adds flexibility and safety without requiring any structural change at all. If the bathroom cannot be on the main floor, a stair lift or a main floor bathroom addition becomes the conversation worth having.
The Kitchen: Staying Independent Longer
The kitchen is where most people spend a significant part of their day, and small changes here can meaningfully extend independence. Pulling electrical outlets and light switches to the front of counters makes them accessible without reaching. Replacing a conventional oven with a side opening model, or a refrigerator with French doors and a bottom freezer, removes the need to bend deeply or reach overhead. Touchless faucets reduce the grip strength required for daily tasks. Counter height adjustments and under counter clearance are worth considering for anyone using or anticipating the use of a wheelchair or walker. None of these changes needs to happen all at once. The point is to know what is possible before necessity forces the decision.
The Bedroom: Rest and Recovery
A bedroom on the main floor is the single most valuable thing a home can offer someone aging in place. If yours is upstairs, it is worth thinking seriously about whether a main floor room could be converted, or whether a stair lift makes the existing arrangement workable for the longer term. Inside the bedroom itself, a bed at the right height for easy transfer, good lighting between the bed and the bathroom, and clear unobstructed pathways make a meaningful difference to both safety and sleep. A ceiling lift, while more significant in scope, can allow someone to remain at home through levels of physical limitation that would otherwise require facility care.
A Note on Single Floor Living
If there is one piece of advice that comes up in almost every aging in place conversation, it is this: The simpler the floor plan, the longer you can stay. A home where everything you need is on one level, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living space, and a safe entrance, is a home that can accommodate a very wide range of physical circumstances. If your current home does not meet that description, it is worth asking whether it could, and what that reorganization or renovation might cost, before assuming the answer is to move.
What the Government Will Help You Pay For
This is the section most Canadians never get to, because most Canadians do not know it exists. The federal government has put real money behind the idea of aging in place, and if you are planning renovations to make your home safer and more accessible, there is a meaningful chance that some of those costs are partially covered. Here are the two programs every Canadian homeowner should know about.
The Home Accessibility Tax Credit (HATC)
The Home Accessibility Tax Credit is a federal non-refundable tax credit designed specifically for seniors and persons with disabilities who are making their home safer and more accessible. If you are 65 or older, or if you are eligible for the Disability Tax Credit, you can claim up to $20,000 per year in eligible renovation expenses. The credit is calculated at 15 percent, which means a maximum annual tax reduction of $3,000.
Eligible expenses include grab bars, wheelchair ramps, stair lifts, walk-in bathtubs, wider doorways, non-slip flooring, and similar accessibility improvements. The credit can also be claimed by a qualifying family member who makes these improvements on behalf of an eligible relative, which means adult children renovating a parent’s home may be able to claim it as well.
Because this is a non-refundable credit, it reduces the tax you owe but does not generate a refund if your tax bill is already zero. For full details and current eligibility criteria, visit the official Canada.ca page for the Home Accessibility Tax Credit.
The Multigenerational Home Renovation Tax Credit (MHRTC)
This one is newer, less well known, and in some ways more powerful. The Multigenerational Home Renovation Tax Credit is a refundable federal tax credit introduced in 2023 for families who are creating a self-contained secondary suite within their home so that a senior or an adult eligible for the Disability Tax Credit can live with a qualifying relative.
You can claim up to $50,000 in eligible renovation expenses, and the credit is calculated at 15 percent, for a maximum credit of $7,500. Because it is refundable, you receive the credit even if you owe no tax at all, meaning the government will send you the money directly if your tax bill does not absorb it.
To qualify, the secondary suite must be self-contained, meaning it needs its own entrance, bathroom, kitchen, and sleeping area. The qualifying individual must be 65 or older, or between 18 and 64 and eligible for the Disability Tax Credit. Only one claim can be made per qualifying individual over their lifetime, so timing matters.
This credit is particularly relevant for families considering a multigenerational living arrangement, a parent or grandparent moving into a suite within an adult child’s home, or vice versa. It is one of the most generous and underused tools in the Canadian tax code for families navigating exactly this kind of transition.
For full details and current eligibility criteria, visit the official Canada.ca page for the Multigenerational Home Renovation Tax Credit.
A Note on Provincial Programs
Several provinces offer their own additional programs on top of the federal credits. British Columbia has a refundable Home Renovation Tax Credit for seniors and persons with disabilities. New Brunswick has a Seniors Home Renovation Tax Credit. Saskatchewan reintroduced its Home Renovation Tax Credit in 2025. Eligibility, amounts, and conditions vary by province, and the landscape does change, so it is worth asking an advisor what is currently available in your specific situation.
The Financial Plan Behind the Decision
Renovations are one part of the picture. The other part, the part that often gets overlooked until it is too late to address comfortably, is making sure the financial plan behind the decision is as solid as the home itself.
Staying home sounds simple. In practice it involves real costs that tend to grow over time. Renovation expenses, even with government credits offsetting some of the burden, can be significant. In-home care, whether occasional help with meals and housekeeping or more intensive personal support, adds up quickly and is rarely fully covered by provincial health programs. And the longer someone lives independently at home, the more the cumulative cost of that independence needs to be accounted for in the retirement plan.
I have had this conversation with a lot of Canadian families over the years, and the ones who navigate it most successfully are almost always the ones who thought about the financial side early, not just the renovations, but the full picture. Some have used their home equity thoughtfully to fund accessibility improvements without compromising their retirement income. Others have put insurance products in place years earlier that now quietly fund the cost of care they need at home. Others simply had a plan that anticipated this chapter of life before it arrived, which meant that when it did, the decisions were choices rather than emergencies.
The details look different for every family. But the principle is consistent. The financial conversation about aging in place is almost always easier, and the options almost always better, when it happens before the need is urgent.
A Final Note
Home is a powerful word. It is not just the physical space, though the space matters. It is the morning light through a familiar window, the neighbours who wave when you pull into the driveway, the kitchen where your family has gathered for every holiday you can remember. It is continuity and comfort and the quiet dignity of living life on your own terms.
Most Canadians want to protect that. Sadly, many families lack a plan that would actually make it possible. My hope is that this article is a useful place to start, not because aging in place is the right answer for everyone, but because every family deserves to make that decision with clear information, honest conversation, and enough time to do it well.
If this article made you think about your own situation, or about a parent or someone you love, I would gently encourage you to follow that thought. Have the conversation. Ask the questions. Find out what is available to you. And if it would help to have that conversation with someone who has guided a lot of Canadian families through exactly this, I am here.
Complimentary conversation with KB Henry.
In closing, if this article resonated with you, please pass it along to someone who might need to read it. A parent. A sibling. A friend who has been quietly putting off a conversation they know they need to have. Sometimes the most useful thing we can do for the people we love is hand them something that says what we have not quite found the words to say ourselves.
As always, I wish you health and happiness.
With Gratitude,
KB Henry
THIS ARTICLE IS PROVIDED AS A GENERAL SOURCE OF INFORMATION ONLY AND SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED TO BE PERSONAL INVESTMENT OR LEGAL ADVICE. READERS SHOULD CONSULT WITH THEIR FINANCIAL OR LEGAL ADVISOR TO ENSURE IT IS SUITABLE FOR THEIR CIRCUMSTANCES.