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THOUGHTS ON OLD PEOPLE'S HOUSING
The provision of higher pensions and opportunities for employment and social activities,
whilst meeting most of the basic needs of elderly people, do not meet their full requirements if the
four walls within which they live act as architectural barriers to their living a full and satisfactory
life. Elderly people still need affection and attention and whilst their families were living at
home this was a bit of the environment which was taken for granted as a way of life. When the
children marry and move away the old people are left to their own devices and then comes the
awareness of their personal loss. There is no one to fetch the coal, to do the shopping, prepare
the meals and stairs become difficult to negotiate. If they were in accommodation from which
they could go out without having to go up and down stairs half the battle would be won. The other
halt, however, has still to be fought.
Much attention is focused upon improving the living arrangements of ill-housed elderly
people by resolving the immediate and most serious housing needs, but it is essential to have an
understanding of the inter-relationships among housing, health, economic and social aspects of
the underlying problem. Old people do not all require the same solution to their problems. For
many years concentration has been focused on the provision of residential Homes in order to
supply adequate shelter for our ageing citizens and although there is definitely a place for
residential Homes for the more infirm further thought and research are needed for those who are
active and alert but just beginning to slow down physically and whose financial position is at a
particular economic disadvantage.
The housing requirements of any family or individual are dynamic, changing almost
imperceptibly over time. Housing arrangements that are ideal for the recently retired couple at
age 65 will be completely unsuited to a frail survivor of the marriage at age 80. The attack on
meeting the needs of the elderly should be phased in four parts, the first phase being when the
family heads reach middle age. At this stage their roots are usually well established, they feel
a sense of satisfaction at having more than enough room in which to live with greater comfort
than had been possible while the children were growing up. Since, as a rule, their health is good
and the principal wage earners are still employed with incomes probably at their peak, there is
little pressure to make a change. Yet it is at this point in the family cycle that the couple is in
the best economic position to make a housing removal or adapt the existing house to meet their
later requirements.
The second phase is when the children have left home, principal wage earners are either
retired or about to retire and, as a result, incomes are lower than in middle age. Physical changes
have taken place and individuals have begun to slow down. Many will have definite physical
ailments with limited activity. Stairs may have become difficult to negotiate. Many find the
house too big and too expensive to keep up, the garden too much to maintain and the boiler too
difficult to tend. Many couples now start to think of changing their accommodation but most of
them never get beyond the discussion stage. About 75% of people after retirement are still living
in the same houses they occupied when younger with full employment and young families. Some
make a satisfactory readjustment but as years pass more find their ability to make satisfactory
readjustment in their living arrangements slowly lessening.
At this retirement age those who can afford it start to seek houses more suited to their
slower pace of living (even finding houses in a warmer climate) but others increasingly find it
necessary to go to live with their children.
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