Politicians and planners make frequent calls for older Australians to give up their three bedroom homes to make way for “working families”. They expect them to move into apartments. But is urban density the answer? Regardless of the ageist inference that older people are “hogging all the houses”, with the political focus on working families, little room is left to discuss the housing needs of older cohorts.
Research by Bruce Judd on downsizing found the majority of older people want to stay put, not move into apartments. But there still remains the question, will these homes support them in their latter years? Within the older cohorts the number of people with dementia is expected to rise significantly, but not much thought has been given to their housing needs.
An article, Housing and age friendly communities policies for future direction – A stepped approach puts the spotlight on this issue. Participants in the study were representatives from peak housing organisations, including strata managers, and advocacy organisations to assess how well their membership were prepared for this group.
The article comes from the International Research Forum on Multi-owned Properties Deakin University, Melbourne 9-10th February 2017.
The picture was taken in Dubai, UAE.
Older home-owners need their space
This is a major work by Bruce Judd, Diana Olsberg, Joanne Quinn and Oya Demirbilek (2010). It challenges the often held assumption that older people are “taking up space” in big houses that they no longer need – assumptions that their homes are “underoccupied”.
This qualitative research shows a very different picture. When people retire, they typically spend more time at home (about 85% of their time), so it makes sense to have “spare” space for home activities, including accommodating family members who live away and come to visit. So downsizing isn’t the answer for everyone.
Download the full report, Dwelling, land and neighbourhood use by older home owners, or the slideshow presentation from a NSW AHURI seminar.
Housing aspirations of older Australians
Three bedrooms and urban living are what most older people want. These are two of the key findings in a new Australian report from AHURI. Age specific housing is not a preference. So researchers suggest more innovation to attract the older cohort so they can age in place after all.
There was no mention of universally designed homes so that age-specific housing doesn’t become the only option. There was only a brief mention of homes being adaptable.
The title of the research paper is, Older Australians and the housing aspirations gap. There are three separate documents: an Executive Summary and a Policy Evidence Summary. The full report is also available from the AHURI website.