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Most people over 65 can, or could, manage quite well; and the majority do so, sometimes
inspite of overwhelming difficulties. Their requirements are a home, dignified occupation, and
money; and these requirements may fail independently of each other.
Age brings disabilities and restrictions, usually of gradual development. The chief
chronic illnesses incidental to age are bronchitis, joint disease, and some circulatory conditions;
these are probably less avoidable and more untreatable than is clinical old age.
To avoid senility, old people require exercise of various kinds, especially walking and
conversation. They need the freedom of the town for company, curiosity, and its compulsion to
walking. The old can be very odd characters, and they often want the charity of their neighbours,
who may be very ready to see them disposed of in hospital; the vice of eccentricity must surely
be carried to a high degree to merit a lifetime of imprisonment.
A HOME is more than a structure which shelters its permanent inmates; but a few
structural requirements are very important for the old. Firstly they require sufficient private space
for their possessions. They don't want extra space which is a burden on their strength to keep
clean and on their mind with family memories of the married or the dead. Stairs and steps are an
enemy to the aged which they meet too frequently in the borough. Also nothing will dissuade them
that any damp in their dwelling makes their joints and bronchitis feel worse. Between 5 and 10%
roughly, of the inhabitants of Waltham Forest will some time or other, and perhaps for a long time,
be confined to a wheelchair; and old people's housing should be apt to this machine. Older persons
appreciate a warm home: this is generally a matter of money, but it can also be a matter of
frustrating regulations.
Like children, old people need the near sight of the business of traffic of every kind.
They need familiar friends and neighbours to talk and quarrel with daily, and for purposes of
sympathy and censure. They need children around to look at rather than to listen to: they are
vulnerable to the wrong kinds of noise.
In consequence, the housing requirements of old people are:-
1. Low Riser Accommodation - that is, not tower blocks, which offend on the grounds of
few neighbours, no pleasure of traffic ("only the blue sky, not even birds"), and
unwelcome noises of many kinds.
2. No Stairs Trouble - ground-floor (without internal steps) or else lifts (even in low
riser housing!) which will take wheelchairs and don't break down. Approach ramps in
practice are not suitable. The more persons who use a set of lifts the more certain it
is that some of them will find their pleasure in putting the lifts out of action.
3. Wide Doorways and Passages for using wheelchairs.
4. Accommodation suitable for the usual business of living:
Kitchen Facilities are very often lacking to old people. Taking tea is of immense value
as a social exercise if not for purposes of hydration. Preparation of hot food though
not enhancing its nutritional value is of moral advantage from the prestige and
occupation it affords.
Sharing kitchens produces great unhappiness in the old.
5. Forphysiological reasons a Private Water Closet is greatly appreciated and its want
resented.
6. A Separate Bedroom rather than a bed-sitter, allows a shake-down for visiting friends,
who may themselves be infirm; and without it the old lose something of their contact
with life.
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