Inside the Singapore shophouse where assisted living comes with a social club

This is the story of seven older adults who live together in a shophouse in Singapore.

Uncle Chee is usually the first up. Aunty Lydia begins her day with oats and blueberries. Uncle Cheong often heads to a nearby hawker center, sometimes returning with snacks from the 7-Eleven next door.

Some days, the space fills with people beyond its residents. On the Tuesday morning I visited in September, Camino House, their assisted-living home, was a flurry of activity. Preschoolers had come for a painting session, filling the shophouse with chatter and laughter.

This was exactly the kind of interaction Mariel Chee and Bennett Lee, both 32, hoped to foster when they founded Camino House.

Rather than build a traditional care facility, they wanted to create a space where people from all walks of life could interact.

"One that's beautiful and welcoming, not clinical or institutional. Somewhere we'd want to grow old ourselves," Chee told Business Insider.

Chee, an artist with a background in early childhood development, and Lee, an engineer, were childhood friends who later married. Lee also grew up around eldercare: his parents are both doctors and founded another assisted-living provider in Singapore.

For Chee, the project was also personal. Her father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in his mid-60s. Chee and her siblings were still in school at the time.

"It was really hard, because he was so young and none of us knew how to care for him," she said.

A middle ground between home and a nursing home

Populations are aging around the world, raising urgent questions about how older adults will live and receive care.

In 2026, Singapore became a "super-aged" society, with 21.4% of its citizens aged 65 or older. About 152,000 citizens are now 80 and above, up by 60% from 91,000 in 2016.

For older Singaporeans who can no longer live entirely independently, care has traditionally fallen to family members, sometimes supplemented by home-based services, or to nursing homes.

Camino House is part of a small but growing private sector in Singapore that serves older adults who need some daily support but not nursing care.

It was one of five providers in a 2023 Singapore initiative to test shared caregiving for groups of seniors living together — a model the country eventually formalized in late 2025.

Life at Camino House

The seven residents of Camino House range in age from 69 to 93.

Built between the 1840s and 1960s, shophouses once made up much of Singapore’s prewar urban landscape, with businesses on the ground floor and living quarters above. Public property records show this colorful two-story shophouse in Joo Chiat, a neighborhood in eastern Singapore, was bought for $3.5 million Singapore dollars in 2020.

There are six bedrooms — four singles and two twins — each with an en suite bathroom. An elevator connects the building's two floors. Three healthcare attendants work in shifts, including overnight, to provide round-the-clock support.

While there is no doctor on-site at the shophouse, there is a clinic about a five-minute walk away, Chee said.

For many families, especially those with relatives living abroad, the reassurance is not only that a loved one is safe, but that they remain connected to people who know them well.

Christine Yee, a Singaporean who has lived in the US for nearly two decades, told Business Insider that Camino House felt like a "godsend."

Her mother, Mary, 93, was its first resident. "It was like a family, so my mom didn't feel like she was being dropped off at some place," Yee said.

Bringing the neighborhood inside

A big part of what keeps residents connected to the wider community is the Joo Chiat Social Club, which hosts most of its activities on the building's ground floor.

These half-day programs include exercise, cooking, and rattan weaving, sometimes with volunteers or children from nearby preschools.

These activities are open to all the residents of Camino House. "The idea is that they get to choose what they want to do," Lee told Business Insider.

The social club also welcomes non-resident participants, with a single-session pass costing about S$100, which covers the cost of the activities, lunch, and care support during the session. Multi-session pass bundles are also available.

The three-hour sessions run three times a week, with plans to expand to daily programming next year, Chee said. There is no age limit, though pass holders tend to be between 70 and 90.

"When younger and older adults meet repeatedly over time to create and learn together, the dynamic shifts from 'doing something for seniors' to 'creating something with seniors,' with both generations participating as active partners," Vivien Wu, an assistant professor at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore, told Business Insider.

Engaging in shared activities can help people connect across language and cognitive barriers, ease social anxiety, and challenge assumptions about aging, she said.

Chee and Lee are not the first to try the idea. Similar intergenerational programs have paired senior care with childcare centers in the US, including Providence Mount St. Vincent in Seattle and the St. Ann Center for Intergenerational Care in Milwaukee.

Yee said she appreciated that the club's activities gave her mom regular opportunities to interact with people of different ages and backgrounds.

"The older folks get this enjoyment from the children, whether it's their antics or their energy or their innocence," she said.

The cost of care, and of community

The average cost of assisted living in the US is around $5,511 a month, though prices vary widely by location. The Boston metro area had the highest average, at $9,577 a month.

In Singapore, there is little public data on what these shared-home providers charge, in part because the space is still small and the government only made the model a standard care option in December. A high-end assisted-living development that opened in August charges between S$8,900 and S$17,000 a month, or $6,952 and $13,280.

At Camino House, monthly costs start from S$4,500, or $3,515, depending on the room type and the level of care needed. This includes meals, laundry, and daily housekeeping.

For Victor Lee, 70, living at Camino House has brought him out of his shell.

After a bad fall three years ago, Lee realized he needed more support than he could get living alone in his two-story apartment. He moved in soon afterward and pays S$5,800 a month for his single room suite.

"I think I'm the most talkative one now," he told Business Insider.

As with any family, living in proximity can bring disagreements and tensions, Chee said. But it has meant getting to know residents in ways that go far beyond their care plans.

"We know their favorite songs, their histories, even their love stories. It feels like we're walking this journey together with them, right to the end," she said.