Older adults in this corner of Ontario end up in the emergency room after a fall more often than almost anywhere else in the province. Among people 75 and older, the Southwestern Public Health region, which takes in St. Thomas, Elgin County and Oxford County, recorded 10,431 fall-related emergency visits per 100,000 people in 2023, the second-highest rate in Ontario. The provincial figure was 8,693.
The falls number comes from provincial injury data. Most of what follows comes from closer to home. In 2025 the Elgin St. Thomas Age Friendly Committee, working with Southwestern Public Health, asked adults 50 and older in St. Thomas and Elgin County how growing older here is going: 239 people answered a survey, and more took part in eight focus groups and seven one-on-one interviews. Those findings are the backbone of the committee’s newly updated Age Friendly Strategy, which is upfront that the people who came forward may not include the loneliest residents.
Housing came up again and again. Only 42 percent of the adults surveyed agreed there are enough housing options for people their age, and 57 percent said there is not enough support to help them stay in their own home. Waits for a long-term care bed run several years. The committee wants to promote alternatives: shared housing with students, co-housing, and Canada HomeShare, a program for home-sharing and renting out rooms.
Transportation came up as one of the biggest barriers of all. Just 20 percent agreed that special transit for people with limited mobility is good enough, 63 percent said they could not find enough information about their transportation options, and about 75 percent said the region needs new alternatives altogether. In rural Elgin there is no public transit at all, and the volunteer driver programs and accessible vans that fill the gap are limited, costly and little known. The committee wants to bring back a transportation working group and look into ride-share options.
Health care gets its own chapter, and it is the one the committee is leaving mostly to others. Family doctors and nurse practitioners are short, waits are long, in-home care is thin, and caregivers described juggling jobs and care with patchy support. The committee says the Elgin Ontario Health Team and the Regional Geriatric Program are better placed to lead there. Its own asks are narrower: bring older adults’ voices into primary-care planning, improve the handoff to home support when patients leave hospital, and expand fall-prevention programs for the people most at risk.
The picture is brighter on community life: 64 percent said they go to social gatherings and activities, and 68 percent find local buildings accessible. The committee still wants to do more to keep people connected: promote a social-connection toolkit called Hey Neighbour in seniors’ buildings, keep the intergenerational Grandpals program going, and expand social prescribing, where a health provider connects a patient to community activities, through the local paramedicine program. On safety, it proposes either an elder-abuse case consultation committee or a Seniors’ Situation Table to work through complicated cases involving local seniors. And outdoors, people asked for sidewalks cleared in winter, more shade, and clearer wayfinding.
The population behind these numbers is aging fast and unevenly. Seniors are 22 percent of St. Thomas, 28 percent of Central Elgin and 18 percent of Malahide, and one in four seniors across Elgin St. Thomas lives on a low income, rising to 35 percent in Aylmer and Dutton Dunwich.
None of this comes with firm promises. Most of what the strategy proposes is written in words like “explore” and “collaborate,” and the committee says that is deliberate: its own members were least satisfied with how much the 2017 plan tried to take on, and it took until 2022 and 2023 just to rebuild the steering group after the pandemic. This update sticks to fewer priorities.
St. Thomas council received the strategy on August 10th and agreed to put $2,000 a year toward the committee’s work starting in 2027, one of three matching contributions alongside the County of Elgin and Southwestern Public Health, with the city holding the pooled fund. The staff report is careful to say the money “does not commit the municipality to implementing specific recommendations,” and the city’s share still has to survive the 2027 budget. The committee is co-chaired by Meagan Lichti of Southwestern Public Health and community member Wendy MacMillan; Taylor Mooney, the city’s Strategic Initiatives Manager, presented it to council. Ontario formally named Elgin St. Thomas an age-friendly community in January. The committee says it will build a way to track progress and report milestones to the public. What that looks like, and when, is still to be worked out.
Sources: Elgin St. Thomas Age Friendly Strategy: 2026 Update, Report CMO-56-26 staff report (both Aug 10, 2026 council agenda attachments), August 10, 2026 St. Thomas council minutes
By Anthony Zruna · About the LocVox Newsroom
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