Housing for older people globally: What are best practices?

National policy on housing for older people varies across countries and shapes housing provision and levels of support for this population. Essentially, such policy indicates which sectors, institutions and agencies, both public and private, have responsibility for the provision and management of housing; how the housing and care services are regulated; and the criteria for admission to different types of public housing. Ten countries took part in the study. The contents of the ten papers show that older people’s housing varies considerably, but in essence may be categorised as general housing (dwellings for independent living in the community, in which older occupants remain living and thus age in place) and specialist housing (forms of shelter, such as institutions and facilities, to which some older people relocate, which provide them support and/or care as needed). A review of housing types and other considerations within these broad categories in the countries has yielded interesting models and solutions. The range of housing types and particular living arrangements, including services available and accessible to support residents’ ageing in place, varies broadly with different countries’ level of “development” – and, by implication, the size of the older population and its proportion of the total population.