New age

Former first lady Hillary Clinton drew inspiration for the title of her book about family policy from an old African saying that it takes a village to raise a child. I would argue that it takes a community to ensure we can meet older people’s growing expectations and needs around housing with care.

We are still tied to traditional housing with care models that can rob people of their independence and the opportunity to make the most of their later years. Relatively new models, such as extra care housing, can offer many older people a home for life, with care and support increasing as their needs change. For some this will mean aides and adaptations in their existing home; for others moving to specialist housing.

The value of extra care housing is likely to be underlined by an independent evaluation of the government’s extra care housing fund, which invested £227 million in local authority-led extra care partnerships between 2004 and 2010. The evaluation by the social services research unit at the University of Kent, to be published next month, is set to confirm that extra care housing is a genuine alternative to residential care.

Earlier studies of residents of these schemes found higher levels of health and well-being compared with those in residential care. Yet when a think tank recently published a report highlighting the large numbers of older people living in ‘under-occupied’ homes, the metaphorical roof fell in on its authors. The truth is that many older people with care and support needs now, or in the future, would move if appropriate, high-quality and well-designed housing with care options were available.

Local authorities can make a start by publishing housing with care strategies and market position statements which assess local demand for housing with care. This will lay a foundation for housing associations and the private sector to start providing the housing with care that older people want to live in.

The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services has recognised the need for such housing and has joined with my organisation to develop a resource pack, due to be published next month, with practical advice on everything from assessing local demand for housing with care to marketing individual schemes.

Council strategies must acknowledge that these are tough times financially. However partners across health, housing, economic development, planning, social care, the NHS and the private sector can begin by assessing local needs and planning together how to meet them. For example, as owners of sheltered housing stock seek to upgrade or renovate over the next decade, they should consider remodelling the stock to extra care housing.

Older people have retired from work - not from life. Their housing should reflect that.

Jeremy Porteus is director of the Housing Learning & Improvement Network