Number of Canadians living with neurological condition projected to more than double by 2050
Neil Sharma | February 13, 2026
With the number of Canadians living with dementia expected to more than double by 2050, care professionals say there’s a growing need for the development of more suitable long-term care facilities.
A considerable proportion of existing long-term care facilities must be upgraded to meet the needs of this growing cohort, said Tracy Pepe, director of Smelling Pink, an organization specializing in scent-training programs for long-term care.
“There are patients who are in hospitals waiting to get into long-term care homes because there aren’t enough of them,” Pepe told CoStar News. “But long-term care homes need to be retrofitted and brought up to more current situations, and they’re not. There’s an opportunity to take the same tools and produce better results. By designing [them] more effectively, we could reduce annual costs. There are savings to be had by thinking differently.”
Canada has over 2,000 licensed long-term care homes with a total of 198,000 and roughly 224,000 beds, 54% of which are privately managed and 46% publicly owned, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
The real estate industry appears aware there’s an opportunity to fill the substantial gap in the market. The Daniels Corp., a builder and developer, for example, has completed over 2,300 units across 16 retirement communities over a 25-year period. But rather than developing standalone facilities, the company integrates them into complexes that offer a continuum of care.
“The reason we really leaned into the notion of building for seniors is we’re always thinking about complete communities wherever it might be that we’re building,” Daniels President Jacob Cohen said in an interview. “It’s because we knew there was going to be — not just a need for these homes — a need for high-quality, thoughtfully-designed residences that support seniors aging in place, independently and with dignity.