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The difficulties encountered in the delivery of voluntary service to older people which include the lack of regularity of the service, the sufficient number of recruits and older people’s reservation about receiving such service are identified in the following section.

Regarding the adequacy of the voluntary service in fulfilling the home-care needs of older people, Ms Yang, Director of Beijing Cuncaochunhui Elderly Mental Health Service, opined that the services provided by volunteers, though not frequent, were able to meet the needs of older people who did not have a high expectation of them:

168 In reality, the needs of older people are not that great. Their homes are not particularly dirty or untidy…Maybe volunteers doing the cleaning for them once a month is good enough.

Those older people who have to rely on the voluntary service to alleviate their home-care difficulties are likely to be unable to afford the private service and ineligible for the state support service, which will be discussed in Chapter 6. If the service is meant to benefit older people living in their own homes, it has to be provided on a regular basis. Hence the question is whether or not the voluntary service is opportune, available when older people express their need. As revealed by the interviewees, the lack of service regularity rendered this source of support unreliable or impractical since the needs of older people were supposed to be regular and continual. Ms Liu, living with her spouse in Guangzhou, raised the point that if the service was not around when needed, it could not help much:

When I need them, they cannot provide the service to us. Because they are volunteers, they can only come when they have time. They are only free on Sundays. But on Sundays, my daughter and son-in-law are also available to help us. What we need is help on weekdays.

Another factor determining whether regular service can be provided is the sufficiency of volunteers. The source of volunteers was not stable or guaranteed since volunteers might have their own preferences for the types of service they wanted to provide, as explained by Ms Wu, Deputy Director of a social work organisation in Liwan District, Guangzhou:

After working here for two years, we realise that it is impossible to recruit the volunteers who are willing to provide household cleaning services to older people once or several times per week…because the volunteers have their own jobs…their own preference. Perhaps, once a month is possible but still not too many of them (are willing to do).

These quotes reveal a gap between the expectations of the interviewees regarding the voluntary service and the realities of the volunteers who have their own service preference and time constraint. Moreover, the recruitment and maintenance of a sufficient pool of

169 volunteers depend whether a neighbourhood network exists. Nevertheless, as discussed in the previous section, when the population becomes mobile and individuals’ daily activities are less involved in the neighbourhood, it is difficult to develop a sense of belonging among the residents. As mentioned in Chapter 2, Residents Committee relies heavily on volunteers to look after the needs of older people. The high turnover of tenants in the neighbourhood was mentioned by Ms Zuo, local Residents Committee officer, Dongcheng District, Beijing, who found it difficult to build up a support network in the neighbourhood and establish a sufficient pool of volunteers:

Since the redevelopment of this neighbourhood, there is a high turnover of tenants, they have already moved out before we have a chance to know them. It is difficult to build up the neighbourhood network.

In the newly developed neighbourhood with high-rise buildings in Changping District located in the fringe of Beijing where Ms Li worked as a local Residents Committee officer, she said that the majority of the residents in the new neighbourhood were younger people who were away for work most of the time. This made it difficult for the staff to get familiar with them and establish the neighbourhood network.

Apart from the volunteers’ inability to deliver a stable service, given the increasing concern about the law and order as mentioned earlier, the older people’s hesitation to receive help from strangers was reflected by the interviewees. As an older person, Ms Chen from Beijing noted her worry in receiving voluntary service:

We are not willing to accept volunteers into our houses because we don’t know them. What if something unpleasant happens?

Ms Zuo, local Residents Committee officer in Dongcheng District, Beijing, also acknowledged the older people’s reservation to receive help from outsiders whom they did not know unless the service was arranged by her office:

As the law and order isn’t that good, older people are very cautious about letting strangers into their houses. It is especially true for those who have mobility difficulty, they are vulnerable…Some older people simply decline the voluntary service unless it’s arranged by us.

170 This points to the core issue that the lack of neighbourhood trust has reduced the wish of the older people to receive services from the ‘strangers’ unless it is endorsed by a ‘formal’ middleman which, here is the Residents Committee. This tells that if the voluntary service has to be effectively provided in an urban society, a better service coordination is needed instead of relying on its spontaneous arrangement.

Forrest and Yip (2007) noted that when the neighbourhood becomes more heterogeneous, there would be a declining involvement of residents in community affairs. Wong (1988) remarked that the tempo of life was much slower under the planned economy while rapid social changes after the market reform have transformed the nature of urban life in which people become busier with more personal commitments. The prevailing values such as privacy, competition and life enjoyment have affected individuals’ perception of collective responsibility to help each other out. Mr Lau, Chairman of Wenchang Community Old People’s Association, Beijing, also observed that the voluntary practice, to a large extent, depended on individuals’ initiative and goodwill without personal benefit. He doubted if the present younger generation was prepared to provide voluntary service without reward when the virtue of mutual help faded gradually in society today. Viewing the weakened neighbourhood rights and responsibilities, the state has promoted the mobilisation of volunteer resources to serve the needy older people in the neighbourhood with an attempt to instill in them a sense of responsibility. Yet, the above observations raise doubts whether or not the existing service delivery mode can be relied on for old-age support and reconsideration of what more should be done to enhance its effectiveness is needed.