Residential Mobility Patterns of Elderly—Leaving the House for an Apartment

One hypothesis is that, in Sweden, the elderly today are more willing to change residence to accommodate for changing lifestyles and poorer health than in earlier generations. If so, the elderly will change their type of tenure from owner occupation to tenant co-operative or rental housing, which includes more services for residents. The aim of this study is to discover if elderly people move to apartments after leaving single-family housing that they own. Mobility patterns of those born in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s are analysed to identify characteristics of stayers and movers, and to determine to what extent the elderly move to rental and tenant co-operative apartments. The analysis is cross-sectional using a register database comprising the Swedish population. Moves were followed between 2001 and 2006. The majority remained in their current dwelling but almost one-quarter moved. Of those, a smaller number moved from owner-occupied housing to a tenant co-operative or rental apartment.     

Designing for an Earlier Age

While the need for suitable housing to accommodate burgeoning numbers of elderly citizens is undeniably great worldwide, Jayne Merkel puts the case that the necessity for affordable housing among young adults is arguably even greater, at least in the US and the UK, and particularly in New York, London and Los Angeles. The relationship between the demands of these two very different age groups is direct, since young people tend not to have children until they can find suitable housing. Forestalled childbearing means fewer members of later generations to financially support growing numbers of aged over time.¹ And young people without suitable housing tend to move back in with ageing parents or drain their financial resources.     

Intentions to Move and Actual Moving Behaviour in The Netherlands

This study examines how anticipated triggers for moving and individual, household and regional characteristics hamper or stimulate actual moving behaviour of people who intend to move. It uses a longitudinal dataset from the Netherlands, in which survey data from the Housing Demand Survey 2002 are combined with register data from the Social Statistical Database. The study finds that people with a strong intention to move are almost four times as likely to move as people with a less strong intention to move. Homeowners are more likely to realise a strong intention to move than renters who want to move within the rental sector of the housing market. The probability of actually moving is particularly great for those wishing to move from owner-occupied to rented housing and those with more resources, whereas it is small for people whose search location is in the Randstad.     

Supportive Housing for Persons with Disabilities: A Framework for Evaluating Alternative Models

The need for supportive housing is growing as people with disabilities seek less restrictive housing options and those who care for them search for long-term solutions. Supportive housing includes housing in a variety of styles that is affordable to people with disabilities but is also connected to services that allow personal independence. Persons with disabilities are seeking community-based residential living arrangements within their abilities and means due to changing attitudes, funding, and legal requirements. As aging parents realize that their disabled adult children will outlive them, they are searching for new models but there is a lack of understanding of supportive housing options. A comprehensive framework is needed to evaluate models by looking at housing and services as separate but interrelated issues. This article explores the need for supportive housing for people with disabilities, offers a framework for evaluating supportive housing options, and provides two case studies of innovative person-centered models for people with developmental disabilities.     

Collapse and Reconstruction: Housing Recovery Policy in Kobe after the Hanshin Great Earthquake

This paper examines the housing recovery policy carried out in Kobe, a disaster city heavily damaged by the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 17 January 1995. The housing problems in the earthquake-hit city resulted not only from direct damage by the disaster. Urban restructuring, underway beforehand, had been generating socio-economic polarisation and geographical disparity in housing conditions. The earthquake caused especially heavy damage on the inner-city housing of low-income people and the elderly. Housing recovery progress in the post-disaster period has also been unequal. This paper shows the growing socio-economic and spatial polarisation. The framework of Japan's housing policy is a two-tiered system. On the one hand, most people are encouraged to obtain their own houses by their own efforts on the market, whereas on the other, public housing as residual welfare housing is directly provided for those who are marginal to the market. The housing recovery policy followed this framework, and functioned to socio-spatially isolate low-income and/or elderly victims.     

Who speaks for the poor?

There is in Australia a chronic shortage of decent housing affordable to the income poor. This shortage is exacerbated by increasingly vociferous opposition from groups of residents to proposals for low‐income housing development. The move towards a more inclusionary form of planning in the 1990s, based on an expansion of public participation strategies, often leaves planners torn between satisfying the demands of the vociferous few and a professional desire for ‘balanced’ development which considers a broader, if nebulous, ‘public good’. In urban consolidation debates, far more is heard from articulate middle class NIMBYs who fear that provision of ‘affordable’ housing will allow people of different (i.e. inferior) backgrounds to move into their areas, than from the lower‐income groups who want to realize their assets through subdivision of their property or who simply want the opportunity to afford somewhere to live. However inclusionary the planning process seeks to be, the articulate classes will become more actively and vociferously involved than others in attempting to shape discussion and outcomes. Is anyone able to speak for the poor or ensure their voices are heard?     

Elderly people's experiences of housing renewal and forced relocation: Social theories and contextual analysis in explanations of emotional experiences

Transformation of the urban environment, forcing people to leave their homes either temporarily or permanently, is a widespread phenomenon in the Western world. To those whose homes are affected, the process often has a strong emotional meaning. This article shows how various contributions to a sociology of emotions together can deepen our knowledge of the socio‐psychological mechanisms that lie behind elderly people's greatly varying emotional experiences of housing renewal and forced relocation. Mechanisms regarding five groups of emotions are presented: (1) trust, mistrust, security and insecurity, (2) powerlessness, self‐estrangement and belonging, (3) guilt, shame, pride and dignity, (4) the feeling of having been violated, and (5) stress. An intensive interview study of elderly people in three neighbourhoods in a middle‐sized Swedish town is presented, showing how these mechanisms are expressed in the encounter between the housing renewal process and the everyday life of elderly people. The article shows how peoples’ concrete emotional experiences are related to, e.g. the nature of the renewal process, the meaning of home and life history.     

Commercial rented housing: two sectors in the Netherlands

This contribution analyses the different developments and roles of two commercial rented sectors in the Netherlands: rented dwellings owned by individuals (private landlords) and rented dwellings owned by institutional investors. Characteristics of properties and households are specified in relation to tenure. An analysis follows of household characteristics of non-movers and movers to, from and within the commercial rented sector. Some policy issues are dealt with, which are relevant for the commercial rented sector. The commercial rented dwellings owned by persons are predominantly pre-war, small, cheap dwellings with a modest quality. They form part of the urban renewal problem. The owners are small-scale landlords, mostly not professional, who do not invest in ambitious renovation or new dwellings. For this sector the future is not very bright. For starters on the housing market and elderly people, this urban sector may have a limited function. The commercial rented dwellings owned by institutions are predominantly post-war (built after 1960), spacious, expensive dwellings with a high quality. The owners are pension funds and insurance companies which sell their properties often after 15 to 20 years when conditions are favourable. This sector has a strategic function at the upper side of the rental market where rents are decontrolled. Well-to-do households in a flexible urban labour market and elderly people are the most important target groups for this sector. This sector demonstrates how a free rental market functions and enriches the whole housing sector with relevant market signals. Hugo Priemus holds the chair in housing at Delft University of Technology, where he is also managing director of OTB Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility Studies.     

Housing assets to the elderly in urban China: to fund or to hedge?

Housing has become the most important asset held by a large proportion of China’s older citizens. Therefore, the role of housing wealth in the consumption decisions of the elderly is a central topic of research and gains insights into the saving, investment and consumption decisions made throughout household life to meet later pension needs. In this paper, using data drawn from a household survey conducted between 2002 and 2009, we estimate the influence of housing wealth on the non-housing consumption of the elderly, and identify the mechanisms underlying this relationship. We find that on average, changes in housing wealth have limited effects on elderly consumption. However, we also find that the role of housing in consumption differs according to the income, health status, and living arrangements of the elderly. The paper draws attention to the influence of housing and its links with social and health-care systems on the lives of older people, with important policy implications.     

新型城镇化背景下重庆城镇保障性住房管理研究

随着新型城镇化的快速推进,到2020年重庆市将达到70%的城镇化率,800万的农业转移人口涌入城市,城镇保障性住房增长速度将无法满足其住房需求。对新型城镇化背景下重庆市保障性住房的现状和问题进行分析,从而提出完善保障性住房管理的建议。     

A housing allowance for the UK? Preconditions for an income‐related housing subsidy

This paper complements the policy focus of Kemp (1994) who addresses the options for housing benefit reform in the UK. By using as general a framework as possible to consider the basic choices, it is apparent that a move to an ex ante form of allowance, can, under most circumstances, be considered to be beneficial—provided that complementary policies evolve alongside changes to personal housing subsidies. It is also clear that levels of support, the degree of progressivity and of targeting cannot be fully answered with theorising by economists. There are fundamental issues concerning just at what level adequate social security provision should be in a modern economy. Personal housing subsidies are vital to low‐income housing consumption and are the core of the UK's housing finance system. It is all the more important, therefore, that the vast resources spent on housing allowances are on schemes which are generally considered efficient and fair.     

老龄化背景下的底层住宅适应性设计研究

目前随着我国老龄化进程加快,老年人的居住问题日趋突出。两代人分居毗邻居住已经成为老年人倾向的主要居住模式。针对这些情况,根据老年人的生理和心理需求,该文提出住宅小区底层住宅老人化的规划模式。将多层、高层建筑的底层住宅专供老年群体,与楼上的子女毗邻居住。对底层住宅进行分割设计,使之适合老年人的居住需求,既解决老龄化背景下的老年人居住问题,又减轻了底层住宅的销售压力。     

From ‘special needs’ housing to independent living?

How best to combine housing and support services for frail elderly people and for people with learning difficulties, mental health problems and physical disabilities is a long established debate in most industrialised countries. This debate occurs in the context of concerns to identify the extent of unmet need through such mechanisms as ‘special needs’ housing surveys. This article draws upon a ‘special needs’ housing survey. However, the emphasis is not upon the ‘facts’ uncovered about existing provision and levels of unmet need, but rather about the principles which need to underpin local policy debates and the implication of these for service developments at the locality level. The principles proposed include a commitment to citizenship, the need to combine appropriate housing with appropriate support and the importance of partnership with service users. The final section of the article explores the implications of such principles for policy developments at the local level by discussing survey findings relating to elderly people and physically disabled people.     

Built environment exposures of adults in the moving to opportunity experiment

Abstract

This article describes environmental exposures of adult participants in the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) for Fair Housing experiment over a four to seven year period from baseline to the interim evaluation. The MTO experiment randomized participants living in public housing or private assisted housing at baseline into experimental and control groups and provided a housing voucher for experimental group participants to move to neighbourhoods with less than 10% of the population below the poverty line. However, few studies have examined how this move affected exposures to health promoting environments. We used data on residential locations of MTO participants and archival data on the built and food environment to construct environmental exposure variables. MTO participants in the experimental and Section 8 groups lived in neighbourhoods with higher food prices, less high intensity development and more open space relative to the control group. The findings suggest that housing policies can have potential health consequences by altering health-related environmental exposures.     

胶东半岛农村居家养老住宅绿色技术适应性改造设计

在中国农村老龄化人数剧增背景下,养老住宅被给予了很大的关注。通过对典型胶东农宅调研、分析,对农宅的实际改造过程进行跟踪记录,从老年人的生活需求出发提出了建筑功能空间适老性、绿色建筑技术节能型改造方案。利用低技策略提高老年人的居住质量,使农村老人在较低的生活成本下享受舒适的生活环境,为胶东地区农村居家养老节能改造进行新的探索。     

Gentrification or social renewal? Effects of public supported housing renewal in Denmark

This paper analyses social change, particularly the processes of social decay, in obsolete and deteriorated housing in the older housing stock in Denmark between 1986 and 1996. These changes are compared with the development which has occurred in similar kinds of housing that have been physically upgraded through a government program for housing renewal.

The study shows that this kind of housing attracts a quick turnover of residents and a tendency towards more unemployed or lower income occupants. It is also used by young people as their first home when moving away from their parents.

It is also shown that public supported housing renewal stops this type of housing pattern and increases the share of households that have high incomes. The changes, however, are not considerable and there are also many unemployed people among the newcomers. These changes depend to a large degree on the size and tenure of the renewed dwellings. In private renting, particularly co‐operatives and in larger dwellings the socio‐economic composition of residents undergo greater changes than in smaller dwellings in non‐profit or public housing. Extensive renewal often results in high rent compared with rent from the regulated housing market in Denmark. As a result the renewed dwellings have difficulties in competing with other kind of dwellings. For that reason residents of this type of housing primarily consist of welfare or pension recipients or others who receive high housing benefits. A minority of people with higher income also use these dwellings but mostly as temporary housing as after a few years they often move to owner‐occupied housing.     

Ageing in Unsuitable Places

Much of the focus of ageing in place policy is concerned with the provision of support to enable older people to age in the community in residences adapted to their needs. There has been little examination of why older people make choices to age in particular places in later life. In this paper, we drew on 143 interviews with older people in New Zealand to examine the narratives older people use to describe their housing preferences in later life. Older people drew upon personal and public narratives to story housing in later life, and construct four identifiable identities: ‘practical planner’, ‘rugged pioneer’, ‘where I belong’ and ‘rooted in place’. This analysis demonstrates that some older people do narrate decisions to age in ‘sensible’ places with good access to services and have clear plans for change as their physical health declines. Other older people live proudly in unsuitable places and do not wish for support to move or accommodations made to their housing. These older people draw upon narratives of place as foundational to their identity, of relationships with people both living and dead as social relationships that bolster their identity and of housing as part of situated lifelong narratives. Both the situation of their home and the condition of the home provide the backdrop to alternative narrative identities that require them to remain in housing because of, or irrespective of, its unsuitability. To understand the limitations and the possibilities of ageing in place, we need to identify the multiple narratives that structure the lives of older people. By doing so, we can support ageing in place processes that do not disrupt the strong identities that have been developed in and through housing.     

Economic impacts of subsidized housing relocation

In recent years increased emphasis has been placed on use of “tenant-based” housing subsidies for acquisition of market-rate housing that is more economically and racially integrated than traditional “project-based” public housing. In this article, we model the short-term economic effects upon various groups of a hypothetical program in which low-income families move from inner-city public housing to spatially dispersed Section 8 rental housing. Using cross-section data from the Chicago region, impacts are computed for two of these groups. Preliminary results indicate that the short-term net economic impact of this hypothetical housing relocation is negative, that these impacts have a spatial character, and that there is a potential tradeoff between tenant benefits, housing subsidies from society and housing integration. Received: 20 January 1998 / Accepted: 30 November 1998     

Neoliberal abandonment in disability housing provision: a look at England and Chile

Public or ‘social’ housing provision in many nations in the Global North is increasingly being driven by neoliberal strategies that include austerity cuts and market-led privatization. This context raises an important question of how likely the state’s reliance on the private sector can ensure that housing remains available and accessible to more disadvantaged low-income groups. To help answer this question, we draw on a comparative study of social housing provision for disabled people in England and Chile; two pioneers of neoliberal reform in this sector. Using interviews with key stakeholders, our findings reveal that the neoliberal reform strategies being employed have tended to dilute the statutory duties of providing accessible housing and to undermine disabled people’s choices in finding appropriate homes. Such lessons are timely and important in order to remain cognisant of the spaces of neoliberal abandonment that are leaving many people unable to gain access to appropriate housing.     

Residential Experiences and the Culture of Suburbanization: A Case Study of Portuguese Homebuyers in Mississauga

This paper examines the housing experiences of immigrants to Canada through a survey of first-generation Portuguese homebuyers in Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto. The survey focused on the push/pull factors leading to their decision to live in the suburbs, their housing search strategies, and their use of services in Mississauga and in the initial area of Portuguese immigrant settlement in downtown Toronto. This study uses data from a questionnaire administered to 110 Portuguese homebuyers in 1990, shortly after their first move to suburban Mississauga; a sample of those respondents were re-interviewed in 2003. The evidence indicates that these immigrants were ‘pulled’ into relocating to Mississauga because of their desire to live in a single-family dwelling in a good neighbourhood. Their housing search relied extensively on ethnic sources of information, particularly Portuguese real estate agents. In general, this group of immigrants expressed satisfaction with their move. The Portuguese community in Mississauga is characterized by a form of voluntary segregation, which seems to be partly a result of their reliance on their own ethnic community for information, language barriers to participating in non-Portuguese activities, and a cultural preference for living near people of the same ethnic background. One consequence of this re-segregation process, by which Portuguese people recreate a Portuguese ‘homeland’ in the suburbs, has been the limitation of their social contacts with members of other ethnic communities that have also settled in suburban Mississauga.