A new research report by Knight Frank estate agency and the law firm Irwin Mitchell shows that less than a quarter of local authorities have senior housing policies in place, and that planning remains one of the largest barriers to growth in the third-age housing sector.
The research is concerning in itself – raising the question of whether we will be positioned to provide an ageing population with suitable housing in the coming years. But the implications are more wide-reaching than this. It shows that senior housing policies continue to be viewed in silo within local authorities, rather than as absolutely integral to social care and NHS policies and budgets, and wider housing policy. What continues to be overlooked at local authority level is the cascade of benefits, to users and the wider community, that flow from well-designed specialist housing for older people.
These benefits begin with the social networks accrued by co-locating elderly peer groups; an effective antidote to feelings of isolation which otherwise have a devastating impact, particularly in respect to health outcomes and early death. Loneliness destroys lives, and in the case of older people, it’s a killer that rebounds onto local authority social care departments and the NHS.
People who are socially and physically active enjoy a better lived experience, have a much-reduced dependency on social care and health services, and live longer. And purpose-designed housing communities for older people are instrumental in this. This we’ve known for years.
We also know that the underlying pressure on the NHS derives from our aging population, with the lion’s share of hospital visits, particularly during the winter season coming as a direct result of inappropriate housing circumstance, compounded by the absence of a social infrastructure that historically would have addressed issues, within the community.
In a Local Government Association report published a decade ago, we learned that over 50% of all local government expenditure was spent on social care, yet the number of users was concentrated on under 1% of the population. This interplay between expenditure and user numbers is exponential, thus tiny adjustments in mitigation of service dependence would have a profoundly positive impact upon local authority budgets.
As for housing supply more generally, we currently have more than five million under-occupied homes and more than seven million spare bedrooms nationally, equivalent to over two million new family homes, or in other terms, ten years of housing supply. In terms of where these spare bedrooms sit, nearly half of all people over the age of 75 live alone, and while a third of older homeowners consider downsizing, research shows only seven percent do so.
It follows then, that a new generation of housing options for seniors of a quality that would seduce them to 'right-size', would unlock housing opportunities for younger generations in established locations close to existing infrastructure such as schools.
What is most devastating then, when reading this new research, is that so few local authorities are joining the dots between housing supply, health care, and adult social care, and that so many are overlooking the positive correlation that exists, between better lived experiences in age-appropriate housing communities, reduced dependency on social care and the NHS, and the release of underoccupied housing stock back into the supply chain. In doing so, local authority leaders are missing the opportunity to integrate local strategies and budgets in a meaningful way.
This disconnect is compounded further by a lack of join-up between well intentioned talk around policy, and a measurable shift in local planning systems, as specialist providers continue to experience immense difficulty in obtaining relevant planning consents, as evidenced by the small unit numbers making their way through the system and into use.
There are some very straight forward steps that could be taken, to begin to address this problem of undersupply in age-appropriate housing, and to affect a better outcome for all. Beginning with a tweaked approach to planning and housing strategy at the local level in favour of quality age restricted housing over other housing types – such as family, student and buy to rent.
So why are local authority chief executives not driving forward demonstrably effective strategies and change to realise this clearly evident marriage value derived from specialist housing for older people?
This is low hanging fruit for local authorities. Do they dare to reach out and pick it?
Roger Black is Ballymore Creative Director and Co-Founder of Pegasus Life
