What Is Wrong With Victorian Retirement Villages

 What is wrong with Victorian Retirement Villages - 

The critical importance of retirement village resident submissions to Victorian state government inquiries is that they are actually living the experience and not just studying it. They know what is wrong because they have experienced it, suffered from it. 

They found that there is almost zero protection when something goes wrong, or the system to obtain that protection is so cumbersome, so demanding of them that surrender is ultimately the chosen option.

All this from a Victorian government that fails to enforce the law as it is currently written, let alone to improve it to protect the very people it was originally written for.

"The law was clearly on the side of the village residents. It was a lack of access to affordable, quick, decisive enforcement of the law the failed them most." -  retvill.net

Retirement villages, the process of for-profit operators seeking financial reward from this commercial activity under the guise of the benevolent provision of retirement housing for older Victorians. Sadly and particularly in Victoria the commercial risks are dampened by statute whilst the commercial rewards are enhanced by statute. For village residents it is the complete opposite, the risks are enhanced by statute whilst the rewards are dampened by statute.

"Families need to be aware that what we are talking about here is the transfer of intergenerational wealth, not to families, but into the pockets of large multi-nationals. Shame about elderly people not having enough money for aged care." 
Tom Gait, Retirement Village Residents Association.

So what is wrong with Victorian retirement villages? the answer is the State Government, Legislators. 

The collective failure of legislators to listen to the very people who know what is wrong, where it goes wrong and how to fix it, the village residents. The village residents are the only ones who are living the impacts of poor legislation, sub-standard management practices, unlawful practices and the failure of the responsible authority to enforce the law as currently written.