About Dignified.ca
Built by a family that needed this.
Dignified.ca exists because in 2013, we couldn't find what we needed — and we almost made the wrong choice because of it.
In 2013, Eric Dewhirst's father had a fall. What followed was the same experience thousands of Canadian families face every year: a sudden need for senior care, a fragmented and confusing landscape of options, and no reliable place to find them.
The family searched. The existing resources were incomplete, outdated, or buried behind referral services with their own financial incentives. They almost overlooked Villa Elmsmere — a retirement home less than a kilometre from their front door — because it simply didn't appear where they were looking.
Eric's father moved into Villa Elmsmere. It was the right fit. But the experience made something clear: the information families need most, at the moment they need it most, shouldn't be this hard to find.
Dignified.ca launched in 2015 with a straightforward goal: build the most complete, accurate, and honest directory of senior care in Canada. No referral games. No commission-based advisors steering families toward higher-paying facilities. No advertising cluttering the experience. Just reliable information, organized clearly, available to anyone.
How it works
Every listing on Dignified.ca is sourced from official provincial regulatory registers — in Ontario, directly from the Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority (RHRA) public database. That means you're seeing the same data regulators use: licensing status, care services offered, capacity, compliance history, and operator information.
The directory is free to search. It always will be. Operators can claim their listing and keep their information current. Families get an unbiased starting point for one of the most important decisions they'll ever make.
Where we're based
Dignified.ca is a Canadian company, based in Ottawa, Ontario. We built this for Canadian families navigating a Canadian system, and that focus isn't going to change. French language support is on the roadmap.
For operators
If you operate a retirement home listed in our directory, you can claim your listing and keep your information up to date. We're building tools to help operators manage their presence and connect with families who are actively searching. If you'd like to get involved early, we'd like to hear from you.