United Kingdom

A Home for Life? A Critical Perspective on Housing Choice for “Downsizers” in the UK

A range of policy, research and media commentary has highlighted the link between housing, health, and wellbeing in later life, with discourses around “ageing in place” and “downsizing” emerging as particularly dominant. This paper critiques current practices and discourses around the commissioning, design, and management of purpose-built retirement housing.
2016

Generation Stuck Exploring the Reality of Downsizing in Later Life

The concept of downsizing in later life has received growing attention in debates over the current state of the housing market in the UK. However, in much of the recent debate around housing and later life, there is an underlying thread that under-occupancy by older people is a social injustice against younger generations struggling to get on the property ladder.
2016

The Future of Housing and Home: Scenarios for 2030

This UK report looks at the future through the lens of four different scenarios that challenge the way we think about housing and home. The report provides a fascinating and provocative look at different drivers of change and how these could manifest themselves in the way we live in fifteen to twenty years’ time.
2016

A community hub approach to older people’s housing

This paper explores the potential of housing with care schemes to act as community hubs. The analysis highlights a range of benefits, barriers and facilitators.
2016

Almshouses: their role in housing policy

Almshouses are charitable organisations, some of which are also Registered Social landlords.
2016

The Social Housing Ageing & Disability Crisis

Allied to the UK's rapidly ageing population and the rising number of people developing dementia, the need to provide safe social housing for those who are older and/or disabled is becoming increasingly urgent and intense. A major piece of recent research by the Smith Institute forecasts that by 2034 there will be 170,000 more residents with mobility problems living in housing association pr
2016

Sheffield Older People’s Independent Living (OPIL) Housing Strategy 2017-2021

This strategy sets out how we plan to meet the housing needs and aspirations of Sheffield’s increasingly diverse and growing older population.
2016

Towards a deeper understanding of the social architecture of co-housing: evidence from the UK, USA and Australia

This paper draws attention to the micro-social practices that self-organising resident groups engage in over the years that it takes to build a co-housing community. This ‘social architecture’ is what distinguishes co-housing from superficially similar shared-space neighbourhoods.
2015

A brief history of housing for older people

An interesting summary of housing options for the elderly in Europe and the UK, from Hospitals, Almshouses and Colleges to our current Retirement Villages.
2015

Cohousing: 'It makes sense for people with things in common to live together'

New housing scheme offering older people the chance to live independently but in a shared community. The article discusses a pioneering new housing scheme for older women in North London, where members would move together into a custom-built housing development, in which each would have her own self-contained apartment and front door, but where they would share communal facilities.
2015
Subscribe to RSS - United Kingdom