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So Happy Together: Shared Living in Retirement
Some might call it a commune, others might call it a tribe. But retirees who are sharing housing in their senior years call it smart and sustainable. This Canadian article looks at new ways seniors are finding a sense of community and happiness while reducing their housing expenses.
2017
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Homeless in Paris: The Darker Side of the City of Light
Official statistics from 2012 put the number of people living without shelter in France at 141,500, an increase of 44% since 2001.
Broadly speaking, homelessness is a middle-aged problem. Almost half of people living on the street are between the ages of 30 and 49, compared with 26% of people over 18 and 25% over 50.
2017
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Unsettled, Insecure, Expensive and Scarce: The Experience of Renting in Australia
National Shelter increasingly looks at the performance of our rental markets in terms of affordability and it was about time we also looked at the experience of renters as users of tenancy products.
2017
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Sustainable Homes for the Elderly
In the UK, ten million people were over sixty-five years old in 2010, and this is projected to increase to nineteen million by 2020. Over two million households are considered to be in fuel poverty and living in unsatisfactory conditions, and many of those people struggling to afford their energy bills are elderly.
2017
Community Building for Old Age: Breaking New Ground. The UK’s first senior cohousing community, High Barnet
This paper offers a case study in active community-building. It describes an initiative conceived and driven by a group of older women who, understanding that living alone as they grew old could leave them vulnerable, looked to each other to develop and share their social capital.
2017
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The Action Plan for Preventing Homelessness in Finland 2016-2019: The Culmination of an Integrated Strategy to End Homelessness?
The integrated Finnish National Homelessness Strategy is often seen as the envy of the economically developed world. Challenges remain and progress is not always even, but Finland is approaching a point at which recurrent and long-term homelessness will be nearly eradicated and experience of any form of homelessness will become uncommon.
2017
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Women's Homelessness: International Evidence on Causes, Consequences, Coping and Policies
This paper reviews international evidence regarding women’s homelessness. It discusses different definitions of homelessness and how women are frequently part of the “hidden homeless” population and less a part of the unsheltered homeless population. It also
considers the data that are used to enumerate and study homeless people.
2017
The downsizing cost traps awaiting Australian retirees – here are five reasons to be wary
This article debunks the myth of zero housing costs in retirement.
The concept of zero housing costs in retirement is based on a 1940s view of a well-maintained, single dwelling on a single allotment of land where the mortgage has been paid off.
2017
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What can you do if you don't want to go into a retirement village?
Enterprising baby boomers are turning to co-housing to avoid the conventional retirement communities that were often the only option for their parents.
2017
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Housing accessibility for senior citizens in Sweden: Estimation of the effects of targeted elimination of environmental barriers
This research aims to estimate the effects of targeted elimination of environmental barriers (EB) in the ordinary housing stock in Sweden, and to explore the estimated effects on accessibility at a population level in relation to (a) residents with different functional profiles, (b) different housing types and (c) building periods.
The elimination of the EB most commonly addressed by housing adap
2017
"There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort."