Providing a better range of housing for older people The gap between demand and supply for innovative solutions to older people’s needs is getting wider. Older people, in common with other age groups, have a very wide range of needs and aspirations, and supply has not kept pace. Often when an older person wants to move, the options are limited and unattractive. Taking forward some of the proposals outlined in this report will increase the satisfaction of older tenants by providing housing better suited to their needs. ‘It’s nice when you get to a certain age and you think “well, I want something different, if there is something like this that you could come into”. Years ago there wasn’t and the likes of my parents when they got old, if you couldn’t look after them, it was a home and you had no choice, that’s what had to happen.’ Older resident in a Gentoo independent living scheme in Sunderland
Reducing expenditure on adaptations Retrofitting adaptations is costly and not always satisfactory, depending on the original design of the building. By designing a higher proportion of accessible stock and increasing the choice of housing available to people as they grow older, helping to improve mobility within the sector, housing associations can reduce the need for one-off adaptations.
Freeing-up of family-sized stock Older tenants who no longer need their family-sized house, or are finding it difficult to manage, are often offered little choice if they want to move. Sometimes the only option is a traditional sheltered housing scheme. By developing a range of high quality accessible housing for older people, either in separate schemes or within general housing developments, it makes it much more likely that older tenants will want to move there.
Reducing demand on care and support services Good housing and related preventative services make a fundamental difference to health and well-being and have a critical contribution to make to the value and effectiveness of the health and care systems. Good design helps older people to live more independently for longer. Services such as handyperson schemes, gardening and decorating allow people to maintain their homes and avoid the difficulty of having to find a contractor and the fear of having a stranger in the home. This can delay people’s need to move to more specialist older people’s housing. This report also contains examples of services designed specifically to reduce the need for care services, such as the Havebury Housing Association scheme which supports hospital discharge.
It is vital that we bring discussion and action on older people’s housing, care and support issues into the mainstream
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