Sores Duman is 20 years old and hasn’t paid rent since moving to Deventer, Netherlands.
They live in a small studio inside the Humanitas Residential Center, a home where more than 100 elderly people—many over 90—spend their days. The director, Gea Sijpkes, had a simple idea: in exchange for free accommodation, students only had to give some of their time to the residents. No formal work, shifts, or demanding obligations. Just company.
So Sores and others like Jurrien Mentink ended up teaching the seniors how to take selfies, shop online from an iPad, and laugh at things they had almost forgotten. Each of the building’s six floors has at least one student, and conversations in the hallways changed in subject, pace, and energy.
What began as a way not to pay rent became a quiet remedy for one of old age’s most common wounds: feeling invisible. The model has already been replicated at Maartenshof, in Groningen, and everything suggests it won’t be the last place where someone decides that loneliness can be fought with a shared key.
