"The time has come for a national effort to build the homes that will meet our needs and aspirations as we all grow older", exhorted the members of a Government commissioned report published last year. "We should all plan ahead positively, creating demand for better choice through a greater range of housing opportunities." Learning from built examples across Europe, the report proposed that housing for older people can, and should, lead the way in terms of space standards, design quality, place-making and sustainability.
The HAPPI panel's work was inspirational and despite – perhaps because of – the dramatically changed economic and political context we now live in, has been followed by other welcome signs of new and innovative approaches to achieving its ambitions. For example the connection has been made between the need to deliver an improved 'offer' to older people and the looming crisis of young families priced out of the housing market.
Many older people occupy the very homes that younger people need – so how to manage the market to gain two wins for the price of one? It's encouraging that both social and private housing market sectors appear to be trying to address this challenge, with private developers now keenly aware that being part of a local inter-generational and perhaps cross-sector solution could help secure local support, and therefore the land and planning consents they need.
With the expansion of the FirstStop Advice service, provided by a partnership of local and national agencies led by EAC, the Charity aims to use the large scale market intelligence gained through its service to help identify what types of new housing product are missing from a local mix.
Many other imaginative ideas are now being actively explored:
• Could group living come back into vogue as more older people look to each other for help or care that Local Authorities used to provide? Hanover thinks so, and has committed to support 'co-housing' arrangements.
• Could inter-generational living arrangements be encouraged? The charity NAPPS reports a surge of interest in homesharing – which it says solves two problems at once: isolation in old age and young people not being able to afford housing.
• Could collaboration between social and private developers produce an attractive retirement housing product affordable to owner-occupiers in the lower range of property values?
• Could older volunteers help reduce the deterrent of high service charges for traditional 'warden' services in retirement housing?
EAC FirstStop is in business to ensure that older people and their families are aware of all the options open to them – so in additional to all forms of retirement living it researches and distributes information about co-housing, homesharing, low-cost tenure options and many other ways in which older people can achieve their housing ambitions.
Copy on this page is provided by EAC, supporter of the older people's housing hub.
