Tag: Ageing Population

Report

Rental Housing for an Ageing Population (HAPPI 5)

Because the great majority of those over pension age are owner-occupiers (including leaseholders), previous reports have concentrated on the people in this tenure. Homeowners have the advantage of some equity in their property – a lot in some areas, not much in other places – and this can be used to pay for a “rightsizing” move or for making their current home more comfortable. But what about those older people who are tenants, renting in either the social or private rented sector (PRS)?

Author: Housing our Ageing Population Panel for Innovation

Publication date: July 2019

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Tags Ageing Population

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Rural Housing for an Ageing Population: Preserving Independence (HAPPI 4)

The Inquiry report makes a number of ‘rural proofing’ recommendations to increase the quality, supply and range of more appropriate age-friendly housing. It suggested an adaptation of the HAPPI principles when designing new homes for older people in rural areas, noting that new housing could preserve independence for older people and save NHS and social care funds.

It also recognised the need to build greater resilience and connectivity amongst local communities across all ages in the countryside. The Inquiry saw at first hand and heard evidence that building hubs for older people within villages also has the added benefit of retaining their support networks of family and friends. The Inquiry therefore also calls for wider community-led support solutions that could help people remain in their own village and stay connected in isolated rural communities.

Author: Housing our Ageing Population Panel for Innovation

Publication date: April 2018

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Tags Ageing Population, Rural Housing

Report

Housing our Ageing Population: Positive Ideas (HAPPI 3) – Making retirement living a positive choice

However, where previous HAPPI reports have focussed on – and led – the drive to improve the design and quality of specialist housing, HAPPI3 explores how older people can be given more control over the management and delivery of services and access to a wider range of housing choices. It recognises that some of the factors that can impede older people ‘rightsizing’ – such as emotional ties to a home or community – are difficult to overcome. However, it says that measures to make moving easier, to build specialist ‘care ready’ housing where people want it and to address the sector’s lingering negative image will encourage more people to move while still fit and healthy.

Having taken evidence from a range of experts and stakeholders, it also calls on local authorities to recognise the social and economic benefits of right-sizing in their local plans and planning policies. House builders and lenders, the report says, should do more to support people looking to move to more appropriate housing by developing clear and transparent information around fees and other costs that offer greater choice and control.

Author: Housing our Ageing Population Panel for Innovation

Publication date: June 2016

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Housing our Ageing Population: Plan for Implementation (HAPPI2)

The APPG inquiry found there were far reaching benefits from developing good quality housing for older people, including a reduction in health and social care costs, as well as the freeing up of family housing and has made a series of recommendations to create movement in the housing market, improve the health of older people and create new housing options for younger people and families. These include:

A Cabinet Office Task Force should bring together the Departments of Health and for Communities and Local Government to take forward the nationwide drive to build the homes needed by an ageing population
The Department for Communities and Local Government should encourage and incentivise the private sector and registered social landlords to meet the rising demand of those seeking to move to elegant, functional, sustainable and manageable homes for later life
The Department of Health should tailor its £300m Health, Care and Support Housing Fund to ensure more schemes are designed to HAPPI principles
Private sector and registered social landlords, with government support, should develop a HAPPI kite mark to raise HAPPI’s market profile
Working alongside local authorities, the Homes and Communities Agency should lead in championing HAPPI to ensure that a clear targeted strategy for housing older people forms part of every local plan and that, where necessary, appropriate sites are brought forward specifically to fill any identified shortfall in market provision
Planners should recognise the special nature of high-quality retirement housing in their requirements for affordable housing and for Community Infrastructure Levy charges
Local housing and social care departments should give strategic priority to assessing and investing in older people’s housing; and maintain accessible housing registers

Author: Housing our Ageing Population Panel for Innovation

Publication date: 2012

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Tags Ageing Population, Design

Report

The Housing our Ageing Population Panel for Innovation (HAPPI) Report

The authors make the following recommendations for design of housing for older people:

New retirement homes should have generous internal space standards, with potential for three habitable rooms and designed to accommodate flexible layouts.
Care is taken in the design of homes and shared spaces, with the placement, size and detail of windows, and to ensure plenty of natural light, and to allow daylight into circulation spaces.
Building layouts maximise natural light and ventilation by avoiding internal corridors and single-aspect flats, and apartments have balconies, patios, or terraces with enough space for tables and chairs as well as plants
In the implementation of measures to ensure adaptability, homes are designed to be ‘care ready’ so that new and emerging technologies, such as telecare and community equipment, can be readily installed.
Building layouts promote circulation areas as shared spaces that offer connections to the wider context, encouraging interaction, supporting interdependence and avoiding an ‘institutional feel’, including the imaginative use of shared balcony access to front doors and thresholds, promoting natural surveillance and providing for ‘defensible space’.
In all but the smallest developments (or those very close to existing community facilities), multi-purpose space is available for residents to meet, with facilities designed to support an appropriate range of activities – perhaps serving the wider neighbourhood as a community ‘hub’, as well as guest rooms for visiting friends and families.
In giving thought to the public realm, design measures ensure that homes engage positively with the street, and that the natural environment is nurtured through new trees and hedges and the preservation of mature planting, and providing wildlife habitats as well as colour, shade and shelter.
Homes are energy-efficient and well insulated, but also well ventilated and able to avoid overheating by, for example, passive solar design, the use of native deciduous planting supplemented by external blinds or shutters, easily operated awnings over balconies, green roofs and cooling chimneys.
Adequate storage is available outside the home together with provision for cycles and mobility aids, and that storage inside the home meets the needs of the occupier.
Shared external surfaces, such as ‘home zones’, that give priority to pedestrians rather than cars, and which are proving successful in other countries, become more common, with due regard to the kinds of navigation difficulties that some visually impaired people may experience in such environments.