There’s never a time we’re taught the difference between a retirement home and a long-term care home – rather it’s a question that’s often thrust upon us when an aging loved one needs support. We get it, we built Elderado because we were in those shoes. Here are the answers to 6 common questions we get about retirement homes in Ontario.
What is the difference between a retirement home and a long-term care home?
Retirement homes offer private-pay housing with flexible support services and are designed to provide comfort, safety, and a meaningful quality of life. Many retirement homes offer all your meals, social activities, recreational opportunities, and community events that help residents stay engaged and connected. They are suitable for older adults who are independent or need varying levels of support.
Long-term care homes provide 24-hour nursing and personal care for people with high care needs or complex medical conditions. Admission to long-term care is managed through Ontario Health atHome, and residents pay a co-pay fee to contribute towards the cost of accommodations and meals.
How can I find retirement homes with availability?
The Retirement Living Availability Registry on Elderado shows which retirement homes have current availability. You can find suites in independent living, assisted living, memory care, and respite care.
What levels of care are available in retirement homes?
Levels of care vary by home, but commonly include independent living, assisted living, memory care, and short-term or respite stays. Some retirement homes offer a full continuum of care, while others focus on a specific level of support.
How much does it cost to live in a retirement home?
Costs vary depending on suite size, care needs, services, location, and amenities, and fees are set by each operator. In Durham Region, independent living starts around $3,000 per month, assisted living starts around $4,000 per month, and memory care starts around $6,000 per month. Monthly rates will differ based on the level of care, the home, and the type of accommodation.
Care provided by a retirement home is private pay and is paid by the resident, while care in long-term care is covered by the province and residents are only required to pay a co-pay fee to contribute towards the cost of accommodation and meals.
You can find the starting price for most retirement homes on Elderado at https://www.elderado.ca/
What is a licensed retirement home?
A licensed retirement home meets the safety and care standards set by the Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority (RHRA) and is required to follow the Retirement Homes Act, 2010 and the Residents’ Bill of Rights. All licensed retirement homes are required to post their RHRA license in a visible place in the home.
What is an unlicensed retirement home?
An unlicensed retirement home is any retirement home, retirement community, or 55+ community that is not licensed by the Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority (RHRA). Unlicensed retirement homes are not inspected by the RHRA, nor are the residents protected by the Retirement Homes Act, 2010 and the Residents’ Bill of Rights. All licensed retirement homes are required to post their RHRA license in a visible place in the home.
Click HERE to navigate and compare retirement homes.
Finding elder care in Canada can be confusing and stressful. Families have to navigate long-term care waitlists, different levels of retirement living support, eligibility requirements, budgets, and often they are under time pressure. Social workers and discharge planners want to help, but resources can be limited and fragmented across various websites and platforms.
When Elderado joined the CABHI Ignite Program in March 2025, the goal was to accelerate our vision of a simpler, clearer, and more transparent way for families and health care workers to navigate and compare elder care options. Nine months later, Elderado has launched new tools, expanded partnerships across Ontario, and supported more than 60,000 users.
What Is CABHI?
The Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation (CABHI) is a leading Canadian hub for innovations that improve life for older adults, caregivers, and front-line health care workers. CABHI, powered by Baycrest, supports early-stage solutions that address real challenges in aging, dementia care, and system navigation.
CABHI provides:
Access to research and clinical expertise
Support with testing and validation
Engagement with older adults, caregivers, and clinicians
Strategic mentorship
Funding to accelerate development
Connections to health care partners across Canada
For companies working in elder care, CABHI is one of the most influential and credible partners available.
What Is the CABHI Ignite Program?
The CABHI Ignite Program is designed for early-stage innovators building products for aging, caregiving, and brain health. Ignite helps organizations refine their solutions, test them with real users, and position them for adoption within the health system.
“With Canada’s population aging at an accelerated pace, advancing innovations that improve the lives of older persons is critical to building a healthier, more resilient future,” says James Mayer, Chief Operating Officer of the Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation (CABHI). “Our Ignite program supports early-stage researchers and startup companies with transformative aging and brain health solutions by removing barriers that often stall innovation progress. By breaking down these barriers, we can accelerate innovation and make meaningful, lasting impacts on the lives of older persons, people with dementia, and their care partners.”
Key strengths of the Ignite Program include:
Research and validation
Ignite guides innovators through structured evaluation to determine whether their solution works in real-world elder care settings.
End-user engagement
The program provides access to older adults, caregivers, clinicians, and health care leaders who offer practical feedback.
Mentorship and sector connections
CABHI advisors can help make introductions to key contacts, and sector leaders who can help test and scale solutions.
Funding
Financial support enables early-stage companies to build, test, and improve their solutions more quickly.
For a platform like Elderado, this combination of funding, credibility, and access was essential to accelerating growth.
Why Elderado Joined the Ignite Program
Elderado was created to help Canadians navigate elder care with clarity. Families often struggle to understand:
The difference between long-term care and retirement homes
How waitlists work
What levels of care exist
Which retirement homes have availability
How to compare retirement living options
Hospitals and health care workers do their best to guide families, but they often rely on manual phone calls, spreadsheets, and inconsistent information.
By March 2025, Elderado had built a strong foundation, but needed support to:
Validate its platform with caregivers and clinicians
Build tools to address gaps in availability information
Strengthen partnerships across the health system
Accelerate product development and adoption
The CABHI Ignite Program provided the ideal environment for that growth.
What Elderado Has Accomplished in Nine Months Through the Ignite Program
From March through November of this year, Elderado made major progress in building tools that support families, caregivers, and community partners. Below are the key accomplishments during the first nine months of the Ignite Program.
1. Launching the Retirement Living Availability Registry
One of Elderado’s most significant achievements during the Ignite Program has been the creation of the Retirement Living Availability Registry (RLAR).
August 2025: Early testing begins
With CABHI’s guidance, Elderado tested a prototype of the RLAR with caregivers, retirement homes, and health care professionals. This testing helped refine the workflow, language, and user experience.
September 2025: Official launch
The RLAR launched publicly in September 2025. It is the first tool in Ontario designed to show current retirement home availability in a clear and accessible way.
Families, social workers, discharge planners, and care coordinators can now:
Find retirement homes with current availability
Filter by location, and care level
Learn more about every retirement home
Contact retirement homes directly through Elderado
Before the RLAR, families often were forced to call multiple retirement homes to find homes with availability. The RLAR replaces this with a single, reliable source of availability information.
2. Partnering With 30 Hospitals, Ontario Health Teams, Clinics, and Community Agencies
A major area of growth during the Ignite Program has been Elderado’s partnerships with the health system. In nine months, Elderado expanded to 38 community partners (hospitals, clinics, Ontario Health Teams, older adult resources) that now use Elderado and the RLAR to support elder care navigation.
CABHI played a direct role in making these partnerships possible. Through the Ignite Program, CABHI:
Made introductions to contacts at Ontario Health Teams, hospitals, and community care
Provided credibility that helped Elderado earn the trust of clinicians
Supported early conversations to align the RLAR with hospital workflows
Helped Elderado communicate the value of real-time availability to discharge planners and care coordinators
These partnerships have helped hospital staff:
Reduce the time spent calling retirement homes
Provide families with clear, up-to-date information
Improve transitions from hospital to retirement living when appropriate
Support families during stressful decision-making moments
Use consistent tools across teams and departments
CABHI’s network and introductions were essential in helping Elderado establish these relationships.
3. Supporting More Than 60,000 Users
To date, Elderado has supported over 60,000 users, including:
Families researching retirement living and long-term care
Seniors exploring independent and assisted living
Caregivers navigating sudden or complex transitions
Health care professionals guiding patients and families
Elderado users have grown by 44.7% since the beginning of the Ignite program, including a noticeable uptick after the launch of the Retirement Living Availability Registry, showing a strong need for real-time availability information in elder care navigation.
How Ignite Enabled Elderado’s Growth
Over nine months, the Ignite Program helped Elderado:
Test and validate new features with real users
Improve product design based on clinical and caregiver feedback
Strengthen relationships with hospitals and community partners
Gain credibility within the health and aging sector
Accelerate timelines from idea to testing to launch
Build tools that better integrate into health care workflows
The combination of funding, mentorship, research support, and introductions has been transformative for Elderado’s growth and adoption.
Looking Ahead
The next phase of Elderado’s growth includes expanding the RLAR across Canada, deepening partnerships with hospitals and community agencies, and building new tools to support home care navigation. Elderado is also preparing to introduce French language support, which is a crucial step toward serving families, caregivers, and frontline workers, and ensuring a more accessible experience for users across the country.
The progress made in the nine months since joining the Ignite Program shows what is possible when innovative solutions receive the support, evaluation, and partnerships needed to succeed.
When a patient no longer needs acute care but can’t safely return home, social workers, discharge planners, and patient care coordinators often have to work against the clock to find appropriate elder care. Every long-term care home has a waitlist, but there are retirement homes with immediate availability – the problem is finding those homes. The traditional process is time-consuming: making dozens of phone calls to homes, leaving messages, waiting for call-backs, and repeating the same questions over and over.
The Retirement Living Availability Registry (RLAR) simplifies this process. It’s a free, online tool from Elderado that shows which retirement homes have current availability — all in one place.
The RLAR was designed to make it easier for patients and their loved ones to find a home when they need it most. Instead of health care workers phoning multiple retirement homes, families can quickly:
See which homes currently have suites available in Independent Living, Assisted Living, Memory Care, or Respite Care.
View the starting price for available suites.
Access the home’s company page with photos, video tours, activity calendars, inspection reports, and other helpful details.
Contact the home directly.
This means less time spent searching and more time supporting patients and families as they transition to the next stage of care.
Reducing the Burden on Frontline Staff
Social workers, discharge planners, and patient care coordinators are often the ones trying to bridge the gap between hospital care and other elder care options. But calling around to retirement homes isn’t just inefficient — it also takes valuable time away from patient support.
The RLAR helps to:
Save hours of manual calling and coordination.
Give families a clear, current list of real options.
Create a more consistent discharge planning process across teams.
Empower families to make informed decisions quickly.
By making availability visible, health care workers can focus on what they do best — supporting patients — rather than chasing information.
Supporting the Reduction of ALC Pressures
Alternate Level of Care (ALC) pressures remain a serious challenge across Ontario. Many patients are ready to leave hospital but have nowhere to go because families struggle to find a suitable home in time. This results in beds staying occupied longer than necessary.
The RLAR provides a practical solution:
Families can see current availability in retirement homes.
Discharge teams can guide families to the tool instead of making dozens of calls themselves.
Patients can transition out of hospital more smoothly.
By helping connect patients to appropriate care more quickly, the RLAR supports efforts to relieve ALC pressures and free up hospital beds for those who need them most.
Free Information Handouts
We offer a free handout for hospitals, clinics, and health care professionals to share with families. This resource explains how the RLAR works and gives families everything they need to start their search immediately.
Who can request handouts:
Hospitals
Outpatient clinics
Social work teams
Discharge planning teams
Primary care and community health partners
To request free copies of the RLAR hospital handout for your team or patients, contact us through Elderado.ca.
The Retirement Living Availability Registry is about more than technology – it’s about supporting patients, families, and the professionals who help them every day.
By giving frontline health care workers and families a fast, clear way to find available retirement homes, we can help reduce stress, ease system pressures, and improve patient flow.
The Retirement Living Availability Registry (RLAR) is a free, online tool from Elderado that helps retirement homes share their availability with families and health partners in real time – and makes it easy for them to stay visible.
Traditionally, families and social workers have had to call home after home to ask the same question: “Do you have any space right now?”
The RLAR flips that process. Instead of waiting for people to find you, your availability appears in one central place that’s actively used by:
Families looking for retirement living options
Hospitals and discharge planners
Social workers and community care providers
This means your suites are seen by people who are already searching for a place for their loved one or patient.
How It Works for Retirement Homes
The RLAR was built to be simple. Retirement homes can sign up in less than two minutes.
Simple sign-up
Provide your name, email, and the name of your retirement home.
Update availability in seconds
Each month, you’ll get an email with a link to your availability form. It’s pre-filled with your last submission, so all you need to do is update if your availability has changed.
Families and partners see your availability
Your listing is automatically updated on the Registry, where families and health partners can view:
The type of available suites (Independent Living, Assisted Living, Memory Care, and Respite)
A direct phone number
Your starting price (Optional)
A link to your Elderado company page with photos, videos, descriptions, and more
This process ensures your current availability is visible to the people who need it most — without creating extra work for your team.
Many health and social service partners have asked for short-term options to support families in crisis. In response, we’ve added Respite Care as a new category in the Registry.
This allows homes to promote short-term stays to:
Families who need temporary support
Hospitals that need transitional care options
Social workers helping seniors safely return to the community
By sharing respite availability, your home can fill suites faster and support more families in need.
Benefits for Your Retirement Home
Increase visibility with families and professionals actively searching.
Fill suites faster without extra marketing costs.
Save staff time by replacing dozens of phone calls with one quick monthly update.
Reach referral partners in hospitals and the community who rely on the RLAR to support discharge planning.
The Registry is free to use and designed to make connecting with families easier and more efficient.
Join the Registry
More than 27 community partners — including hospitals — already use the Registry to help families find care. By joining, your home can be part of a growing network that connects seniors to the right place at the right time.
When a loved one suddenly needs care, families can find themselves in a race against time. A hospital discharge, a sudden change in health, or a fall can create an urgent need for safe, appropriate care. In these moments, families are forced to make big decisions fast – and the search for a retirement home can feel overwhelming.
For years, families have had to call home after home, repeat the same questions, and often get the same answer: “Sorry, we don’t have space right now.”
That’s why Elderado created the Retirement Living Availability Registry (RLAR). It’s a free, online tool designed to make the search for retirement home availability faster, easier, and less stressful.
When someone can no longer live safely at home, or needs a place to recover after a hospital stay, families have to make decisions quickly. But the traditional process is exhausting:
Calling multiple homes to ask if they have space.
Waiting for callbacks.
Not knowing what’s available or what it costs.
Having to make a rushed choice without all the information.
The RLAR removes a lot of this burden by showing families, in one place, which homes currently have space in:
Independent Living
Assisted Living
Memory Care
Respite Care
This gives families a clear starting point instead of starting from scratch.
What Families Can See on the Registry
Each listing on the RLAR includes practical details to help families make informed decisions:
Level of care: Is there availability in independent living, assisted living, memory care, or respite care
Starting price: So you can narrow your search to what fits your budget.
Phone number: To contact the home directly.
Link to the home’s company page, which includes:
Photos of the residence
A video tour
A written description of the home and services offered
A sample menu and activity calendar
Inspection reports
Instead of spending hours calling homes one by one, families can see the most important information right away.
Search for homes with space
You’ll see a list of retirement homes with current availability, organized by care type and location.
Review the listings
Check the starting prices, look at photos, read descriptions, and view the activity calendar to understand what daily life might look like in each home.
Contact the homes directly
Once you’ve found homes that fit your needs and budget, use the phone number or contact button to reach out.
Make a confident decision
With clear, up-to-date information in front of you, you can choose a home without the stress of endless phone calls or guesswork.
How This Helps Families in Real Life
Imagine your parent is in the hospital and can’t safely return home. You’ve been told you need to find a retirement home within a few days.
Instead of calling 20 homes to ask about vacancies, you visit the RLAR. In just a few minutes, you can see which homes have suites available, what kind of care they offer, and whether they’re in your budget. From there, you can call the top choices, ask questions, and book tours or move-in assessments.
This process gives families back valuable time — and a greater sense of control during a stressful moment.
The Growing Long-Term Care Waitlist and Why It Matters
It’s important to understand the bigger picture of care in Ontario. Many families have heard the challenges to be admitted into a long-term care home.
There are over 48,000 people waiting for long-term care in Ontario.
This wait-list has doubled over the past 10 years.
Because of this wait-list, hospitals, families, and social workers are under pressure.
What this means for families in crisis: Relying on long-term care alone may mean longer waits, fewer choices, and more uncertainty. The RLAR offers an alternate path — a way to explore retirement homes that are ready now, helping you bypass some of the long delays.
A Simpler Way to Find Care
Finding the right retirement home shouldn’t feel like a crisis. The Retirement Living Availability Registry gives families a clear, fast, and practical way to find real options when it matters most.
When a loved one suddenly needs care, finding a retirement home with space can be stressful. Families often have to make quick decisions, calling around to multiple homes to find out who has availability and can provide the care their loved one needs.
That’s where the Retirement Living Availability Registry (RLAR) comes in.
The Retirement Living Availability Registry is a free online tool that helps families with immediate needs connect with retirement homes with current availability.
How It Supports Hospitals and Health Care Providers
Hospitals often have patients who no longer need to be in hospital but can’t go home safely. Discharge planners and social workers can spend hours phoning homes to find open spaces.
With the Availability Registry they can:
Quickly see which homes have suites available.
Find options that fit a patient’s needs.
Help seniors transition sooner to a setting better suited to their condition and needs.
This frees up hospital beds for other patients who need them and helps seniors transition smoothly into care.
For retirement homes, the Availability Registry is a simple way to share their availability with hospitals, health care partners, and families in real time.
Easy sign-up: takes less than 2 minutes.
Monthly updates: homes get a reminder email and can update availability in seconds.
Free to use: there’s no cost to participate.
27+ community partners already use it to help their clients.
The Availability Registry connects families in crisis with retirement homes that have availability – helping people in difficult moments. When someone is in hospital or can’t live safely at home anymore, families need clear, simple information to make the best choice.
The Registry:
Gives families more control and clarity.
Helps hospitals reduce pressure and free up beds.
Supports retirement homes in reaching families who need them.
Makes the system work better for everyone.
While the Availability Registry focuses on retirement homes, it helps ease the strain on long-term care and hospital systems by making existing capacity visible and accessible.
A Growing Network
The Registry started in Durham Region in August 2025 and is expanding across Ontario and Canada. It’s already used by hospitals and community organizations to help seniors find the care they need faster.
As our population ages, tools like the Retirement Living Availability Registry will play a big role in improving how families, hospitals, and care providers work together.
