Our Future Homes: Recommendations For Older People’s Housing

The final report of the Older People’s Housing Taskforce, compiled on behalf of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and the Department of Health and Social Care, has been published, with nine key recommendations made to help support people to live well and longer in age-friendly, faith and culture sensitive, and dementia-inclusive communities.

When questioned about their housing arrangement priorities, the most-cited aspect by senior citizens was independence, with facilities and fittings/fixtures at home that best support their needs, while enabling social connections with loved ones and the wider community.

However, the report acknowledges that there is no single best approach for providing this later on in life.

There are currently many different types of older people’s housing (OPH) and later living homes (LLH) that do meet the needs of residents, including co-housing, communal living, adapted mainstream homes, and those that have been deliberately designed and built to support evolving needs.

But these housing options need to be expanded, in terms of variety and volume alike, so that senior citizens are provided with a greater amount of choice as their health and lifestyle needs change over time. 

Currently, however, the housing market is falling significantly short when it comes to delivering accessible and affordable LLH, with the new report bringing some alarming facts to light.

For example, an estimated 30 to 50,000 new LLH are required each year in order to meet the needs of an ageing population, but only approximately 7,000 are being constructed annually. 

While more than nine out of ten people over the age of 65 currently live in mainstream housing, just 12 per cent have level access at the building entrance and less than 50 per cent have a bathroom on the entry level of the property.

And older people admit to being unaware of the different housing options available to them, saying that they often find themselves burying their heads in the sand, avoiding the topic of their future housing needs altogether.

To tackle issues such as these, the Housing Taskforce has come with nine core recommendations for government, local systems and industry partners to deliver a comprehensive and balanced package that, if followed through, will have a long-lasting impact on the housing landscape.

These recommendations include:

 

Incentivise a wide range of OPH/LLH options

Housing choice should be available and accessible to everyone, with the fact that senior citizens are highly diverse in terms of identities, backgrounds, wishes and needs. 

Housing challenges include unsuitable mainstream housing, a dearth of faith and culture-sensitive options for later living and underoccupied dwellings. Existing stock must be adapted and upgraded, and accessibility standards raised for new builds.

 

Design more housing for later life

All forms of OPH/LLH needs to be optimised to ensure that the country’s housing stock meets the needs of an ageing population, including mainstream housing, service-led housing, community-led housing and care homes.

 

Strengthen planning policies

The development of new forms of OHP/LLH can be incentivised and accelerated through national and local planning policy and practice, helping to shape mainstream housing and the built environment so that it is inherently more age-friendly, faith and culture-sensitive, and dementia-inclusive.

If the various challenges are successfully addressed, people will be enabled to live well for longer in the place of their choice and in meaningful communities, in places they consider to be home. Millions of pounds will also be saved for the NHS and social care system through the reduction and avoidance of hospital admissions and readmissions.

In order to realise this vision, the range of housing options must be urgently expanded and housing, ageing, wellbeing and inclusive communities put at the heart of all action taken, with the government leading the way.