Politicians and planners make frequent calls for older Australians to give up their three bedroom homes to make way for “working families”. The 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.
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 the need for universally designed homes so that age-specific housing doesn’t become the “no choice” 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.