Without asking older people, politicians and planners make frequent calls for older Australians to give up their three bedroom homes to make way for “working families” and move into apartments. Regardless of a somewhat 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 and his team at UNSW on downsizing found that 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.