HOUSING OF OLDER PEOPLE

“Adequate living accommodation and agreeable physical surroundings are necessary for the well-being of all people. And i t is generally accepted that housing has a great influence on the quality of life of any age group in any country. Suitable housing is even more important to the elderly, whose abodes are the centre of virtually all of their activities. Adaptations to the home, the provision of practical domestic aids to daily living and appropriately designed household equip- ment can make i t easier for those elderly people whose mobility is restricted or who are otherwise disabled to continue to live in their own homes.”

Vienna International Plan of Action on Aging United Nations, New York, 1983 p.35.

The housing needs, circumstances and costs of older people are central to their well-being and indepen- dence. The Australian Journal on Ageing, in devoting this issue to older people’s housing, seeks to promote the further development of appropriate housing policies and to encourage integration of housing and community care policies and programmes. The Recommendations of the World Assembly on Ageing, held in Vienna, Austria. 1982, and embodied in the Vienna International Plan of Action on Ageing state: Recommendation 19

Housing for the elderly must be viewed as more than mere shelter. In addition to the physical, i t has psychological and social significance, which should be taken into account. To release the aged from dependence on others, national housing policies should pursue the following goals: (a) Helping the aged to continue to live in their

own homes as long as possible, provision being made for restoration and development and, where feasible and appropriate, the remodel- ling and improvement of homes and their adap- tation to match the ability of the aged to get to and from them and use the facilities;

(b) Planning and introducing - under a housing policy that also provides for public financing and agreements with the private sector - hous- ing for the aged of various types to suit the status and degree of self-sufficiency of the aged

themselves, in accordance with local tradition and customs;

(c) Co-ordinating policies on housing with those concerned with community services (social, health, cultural, leisure, communications) so as to secure, whenever possible, an especially favourable position for housing the aged vis-a- vis dwellings for the population at large;

(d) Evolve and apply special policies and measures, and make arrangements so as to allow the aged to move about and to protect them from traffic hazards;

(el Such a policy should, in turn, form part of the broader policy of support for the least well-off sectors of the population.

Recommendation 20 Urban rebuilding and development planning and law should pay special attention to the problems of the aging, assisting in securing their social integration.

National Governments should be encouraged to adopt housing policies that take into account the needs of the elderly and the socially disadvantaged. A living environment designed to support the func- tional capacities of this group and the socially disadvantaged should be an integral part of national guidelines for human settlements policies and action.

Special attention should be paid to environmental problems and to designing a living environment that would take into account the functional capa- city of the elderly and facilitate mobility and com- munication through the provision of adequate means of transport. The living environment should be designed, with support from Governments, local authorities and non-governmental organisations, so as to enable elderly people to continue to live, if they so wish, in locations that are familiar to them, where their in- volvement in the community may be of long stand- ing and where they will have the opportunity to lead a rich, normal and secure life.

Recornmendation 21

Recommendation 22

Australian Journal on Ageing, Vol. 5. No. 2. May 1986. 3