‘You can’t put your roots down’: housing pathways,rental tenure and precarity in older age

Abstract

In light of housing affordability concerns, we examine older people’s experiences of renting within a context of enduring home-ownership norms and aspirations. Adapting Clapham’s housing pathways framework, we ask: How is rental tenure experienced by older people who have encountered precarity in their housing history? Drawing on interviews with 13 older tenants, we observe the uneasy relationship between tenure insecurity and housing quality, and tensions between choice and luck in experiences of renting in later life. Three pathways related to renting in older age were apparent: life-long renting; loss of homeownership through adversity; and deliberate decisions to transition to renting. We note that challenges encountered in current and previous housing situations lead to diverse narratives of precarity in later life. These precarious experiences can be exacerbated by intersecting uncertainties associated with health, financial and personal circumstances. Older tenants’ housing pathways and experiences illuminate ways in which precarity can disrupt opportunities for ageing well and ageing in place.     

The Significance of Demographic Change in the Swiss Approach to Private Rented Housing: A Potential for Ageing in Place?

Recent findings indicate that changing social constructions of age are mirrored in a growing desire for autonomous living in later life. This individualised concept is referred to as ‘ageing in place’. This paper discusses the challenges for the housing industry and examines to what extent maintenance and development strategies of Swiss real estate investors are meeting the changing demands of older people. Drawing on a number of case studies in Switzerland the paper concludes that investors' concepts of older people and their needs are not merely out of step with the reality of older people's lives and choices but obstruct the desire to age in place. Furthermore, an analysis of the market potential of older people's wish to stay in their present home demonstrates that some investors may be failing to exploit serious business opportunities that could arise from providing services to older people.     

At home in home care? Contents and boundaries of the ‘domestic’ among immigrant live-in workers in Italy

How ‘at home’, if at all, migrants feel in their everyday lives abroad is a neglected research issue, with meaningful implications for immigrant, social and housing policies. Their employment as live-in care workers with elderly clients is a unique site to address it, as this article aims to do, based on an archive of life histories of immigrant women in Italy. Co-residential domestic work foregrounds migrants’ need for a domestic space of their own, within the place of someone else. Building on immigrant women’s narratives, I explore what senses and dimensions of domesticity, or even of home, are negotiated in their routine interactions with older clients and the latter’s family members. Within a dwelling place which conflates work and domesticity, the cognitive, emotional and practical dimensions of migrants’ gendered home experience are nothing obvious. How is home-making – as a set of practices oriented to pursue security, familiarity and control – enacted under these circumstances? Is the cultivation of a sense of home beneficial to the clients only, or do immigrant women themselves feel at home somehow? Different ‘modes of domesticity’ are discussed, at the intersection between continuous expectations of home-making and discontinuous ways of feeling at home.     

Creating places through participatory design: psychological techniques to understand people’s conceptions

Place making is fundamental in creating human settlements. It is now understood that wholesome places cannot be created by professionals without the active participation of people who should be able to transform them as their own. Approaches to place making such as the Pattern Language of Christopher Alexander and Supports of Nabeel Hamdi attempted to engage people in the process in a number of ways. Participatory techniques are central to these practices, but there remain a paucity of appropriate techniques that can be adopted in facilitating people to articulate their perceptions useful to create places. This paper examines two psychological techniques; sorting task and location task and their applicability as practiced in a recent housing project implemented in Sri Lanka. The tasks divulged a number of facets of people’s conceptualizations of their settlements; those related to the present setting, the specific places in the existing settlement, those related to the imagined places and finally the desired geographical features of the imagined places. The paper then interprets and discusses how these conceptualizations have been directed towards articulating the spaces in the designed setting so that they could be transformed by the people to become wholesome places. It demonstrates that when the idea of ‘place’ is the focus of participatory practices and by using the techniques described, meaningful places can be effectively created.     

Housing Conflicts in the Irish Countryside: Uses and Abuses of Postcolonial Narratives

The aim of this paper is to explore how collective memories of place have framed contemporary planning conflicts in a rural arena. Specifically, the paper charts the emergence of the Irish Rural Dwellers Association (IRDA) as a vocal campaigner for private property rights and a laissez-faire approach to accommodating new housing development in the open countryside. For the IRDA, postcolonial narratives and national(ist) identities provide an important vocabulary for protest and opposition to state regulation by: 1) providing a discursive device to create a shared storyline of rural struggle; 2) providing an exclusionary device, whereby drawing on ‘memory’ and representations of rurality creates an insider/outsider discourse where some voices are cast as illegitimate; and 3) providing a frame for placing emotional knowledge at the centre of planning and landscape policy-making. This paper questions the authenticity of this policy narrative and addresses the validity of self-acclaimed knowledge within the landscape and rural policy arena. More broadly, the paper attempts to enhance understanding of how memory shapes policy narratives in the (re)production of cultural landscapes.     

Understanding the pervasiveness of trauma within a housing facility for people living with HIV

Abstract

Trauma exposure is highly prevalent among marginalized people living with HIV (PLHIV). Trauma influences experiences in environments where PLHIV reside and access support services, in addition to impacting mental and physical health. This qualitative study of 24 PLHIV examined how trauma and socio-structural inequities shaped participants’ experiences living in a supportive housing facility for PLHIV, impacted health-related outcomes, and affected engagement in services. Participant narratives highlighted the frequency of traumatic experiences, which were often related to participants’ social locations (e.g., gender, race, and ethnicity). These experiences complicated how participants engaged with other residents and accessed support services within the housing facility. Participants reported self-isolation as a mechanism to avoid re-traumatization through interactions within the building, and to work towards attainment of what they viewed to be a ‘normal’ life. Supportive housing facilities that incorporate trauma-informed practices have the potential to attenuate the negative impacts of social marginalization within housing environments.     

Older adults’ experiences of home maintenance issues and opportunities to maintain ageing in place

This paper addresses the question of how older adults’ experiences of home maintenance issues shape their opportunities to maintain ageing in place. We explore this question through a case study of ageing in place on Waiheke Island, near Auckland, New Zealand. We draw on in-depth interviews with 28 older adults aged 65 to 94, as well as participatory photo elicitation interviews and research journals conducted with 11 of these participants. We argue that older adults’ diverse personal circumstances and wider social contexts influence how home maintenance concerns are understood and addressed. We find that maintenance issues may cause stress and anxiety, thereby rupturing affective ties to place, limiting access to preferred identities and reducing well-being. Yet many feel connected to social networks and gain a positive sense of self and autonomy through participation in home maintenance tasks. Ultimately, how older adults experience their home maintenance issues influences their opportunities to maintain ageing in place.     

Private Sector Housing Improvement in the UK and the Chronically Ill: Implications for Collaborative Working

The principal thrust of the UK ‘Supporting People’ (SP) programme is concerned with packages of long-term support for older and disabled people, but there is concern that in spite of its declared aims, owner-occupiers may miss out. A recent study has identified a substantial group of poor owner-occupiers, who suffer from chronic illness but currently receive little in the way of housing or health support.

Aimed at people who have serious coronary disease, the ‘Housing for Healthier Hearts’ project in Bradford has shown that a short-term task-centred programme of intervention and support by housing and health workers – focusing on immediate health-care concerns and specific housing improvement – can make a rapid and substantial difference to health and quality of life and the ability of residents to retain independence. Nevertheless there was concern that multi-agency participation – prominent at policy level, and crucial to the success of the SP programme – proved far more difficult to effect at ‘grass roots’. The article concludes with an analysis of the issues, and barriers, affecting collaborative working between housing and health agencies, and suggests some strategies for developing good practice.     

Self-esteem and Social Motivation in Age-segregated Settings

This paper is concerned with daily life and social negotiation within sheltered housing. The focus of research was to explore tenants' social interactions as older people and as members of a small community, in order to understand better how such settings affect quality of life and environmental meaning in later life. Research took place in three similar sized London schemes, all within the social rented sector. One scheme is managed by a local authority housing department, the other two by different housing associations. Analysis reveals that sheltered housing has significant social consequences in respect of tenants' experiences of this setting as a communal, age-segregated environment. In particular, exploration of the subject of self-esteem in respect to these aspects of the environment highlights both positive and negative features of social life in sheltered housing. Conclusions are reached that in evaluating this form of housing, and any such provision set up exclusively for older people, researchers and providers must pay greater attention to the subject of social interaction, and its benefits and challenges to older people.     

Housing tenure and the health of older Australians dependent on the age pension for their income

The article examines how the housing tenure of older Australians, who are primarily or solely dependent on the government age pension for their income, impacts on their health. Drawing on 125 in-depth interviews with older private renters, social housing tenants and homeowners, it focuses mainly on interviewees’ narratives as to the impacts of their housing tenure on their mental health and outlook. It illustrates that security of tenure and cost of accommodation potentially has a profound impact on the psychological health of older Australians. Most of the older private renters told of being constantly stressed due to concerns about being given notice to vacate or an untenable rent increase. In contrast, the strong security of tenure and limited accommodation costs of older social housing tenants and homeowners created a foundation for a positive outlook and the capacity to lead a decent life.     

Relational and gendered selves: older Irish migrants’ housing and employment histories in the north and East Midlands of England

Most accounts of migration stress the economic necessity, but generally blur the role of migrants themselves in the process. It is also rare to consider male and female migrants together, or to explore the relational aspects of masculinity and femininity in migration histories. This paper explores the relational aspects of Irish (‘Irish’ is used throughout this article to refer to our participants who self-identified as ‘Irish’. It is further noted that all of the participants were from the Republic of Ireland and hence does not include Northern Irish migrants. Where ‘Ireland’ is used it refers to the Republic of Ireland) migrants’ residential and work histories using narrative enquiry. First, we explore the complex relationship between housing and employment in Irish women and men’s stories focusing particularly on the early phase of migration. Second, we argue that these narratives, especially the ‘intertwining personal, sub-cultural and cultural stories’ are essential in understanding Irish migrants’ experiences. Third, we posit that gender emerges as a significant factor with qualitative differences in Irish women’s and men’s trajectories. Our analysis focuses on the self-in-relation, housing pathways and gendered housing and employment strategies.     

Slum clearance and relocation: a reassessment of social outcomes combining short-term and long-term perspectives

Abstract

Housing research rarely takes a long-term view of the impacts of short-term housing changes. Thus, in studies of post-war relocation, narratives of ‘loss of community’ and ‘dislocation’ have dominated the debate for decades. This paper combines a ‘re-study’ methodology with oral histories to re-examine the experience of relocation into high-rise flats in Glasgow in the 1960s and 1970s. We find that both the immediate and longer term outcomes of relocation varied greatly; while some people failed to settle and felt a loss of social relations, many others did not. People had agency, some chose to get away from tenement life and others chose to move on subsequently as aspirations changed. Furthermore, relocation to high-rise was not always the life-defining event or moment it is often depicted to be. Outcomes from relocation are mediated by many other events and experiences, questioning its role as an explanatory paradigm in housing studies.     

Intergenerational family support for ‘Generation Rent’: the family home for socially disengaged young people

This paper critically discusses the concept of intergenerational family support in housing for young people. Recognizing increased difficulties faced by the younger generation in the housing market, this paper highlights that support from older family members is increasingly important. Nonetheless, it is critiqued that the role of the family home has been largely ignored in the current ‘generation rent’ discourse. By drawing on recent youth studies debates, this paper argues living in the family home could be an important form of support in housing, especially for marginalized youth. This paper presents insights from qualitative studies in Hong Kong and Scotland and analyses interview accounts of socially disengaged young people. It reflects how remaining at the family home could be interpreted as intergenerational support, and further elicits complexities in expectations, negotiations and emotions involved. This analysis offers new evidence and a more nuanced perspective of intergenerational family support in housing research.     

Place Attachment and Memory: Landscapes of Belonging as Experienced Post-migration

This paper examines the role of public spaces in developing emotions of place attachment by first generation migrants. We look at the role of memory, of both continuity and dislocation prompted by everyday experiences of local places among residents who had moved to the UK from a range of non-European countries. The research was focused on a neighbourhood in Sheffield, with participants producing on-site independently recorded audio to communicate their responses to being outdoors. Our findings indicate the scope of outdoor places to prompt memories and highlight connections between different periods of the participants' lives. Performance of familiar activities and reflections of values in public spaces were important in developing a sense of belonging at the local scale. A sense of ‘personal fit’ to places of residence can reflect transnational identities and sense of continuity over different life stages.     

The meaning of ‘home’ in contemporary english culture

This paper develops an earlier and more speculative article on the meaning of the home by drawing on material generated in a recent household survey in three English towns. It first considers the frequently repeated view that men experience home as haven while women experience it more negatively as a place of work and entrapment. No evidence is found to support this view, for although they divide domestic work unevenly between them, men and women seem to express very similar sentiments about their homes. Next the paper looks at the significance of age and shows that home becomes more important to people as they grow older. Thirdly, it considers the significance of tenure. Here it is found that home ownership does not ‘privatise’ people in terms of their life styles (as critics have often imagined), but it does create the basis for a stronger sense of ‘ontological security’ than is found among tenants. Finally, the paper shows very little difference in the cultural meaning of the home in different parts of the country. It is concluded that, although survey evidence like this is limited in its scope and validity, the findings do indicate that we should reconsider some of the myths which have often been taken for granted in the literature on home ownership.     

Places that Support Human Flourishing: Lessons from Later Life

This review paper contends that by paying attention to the quality of life issues raised by older people, planners may promote better places for all. Recent research in the UK that asked older people to identify quality of life criteria revealed that health, income, social networks, community participation, information, activities, home, neighbourhood and mobility are key areas where old age can be enriched. The paper argues that of these, home, neighbourhood and mobility are paramount for four reasons. Firstly, older people are seen as situated, even fixed, in domestic environments; secondly, society has responded to later life by creating age-segregated spaces; thirdly, lessening mobility may increase the importance of the local arena and fourthly the interplay between the self and the environment underpins or undermines independence. The significance of place means that planners, even more than other professionals, need to be age aware. Drawing on recent national and international research this paper contemplates what a more age-friendly place might be like and considers how issues of age can interact with the broader planning agendas of sustainability, cohesion and liveability to create places that promote well-being for every member of the community.     

Storytelling and urban design

Stories and storytelling can inform and condition the design of places in multiple ways. Urban designers can (1) curate the narrative landscape of a town in ways that support designers' engagement with place stories, (2) nurture a virtuous cycle of interactions between stories of place, built form, and the emergent form of a settlement, and (3) create formats for the inclusion of multiple designers and a diverse set of independent stories rather than master narratives.     

What women want: single older women and their housing preferences

It is increasingly recognized in Australia that single, older women are particularly vulnerable to housing-related stress and homelessness. This paper reports on a qualitative study that explored the housing experiences of single, older, non-homeowning women in regional New South Wales, Australia. Interviews were conducted with 47 participants living independently in precarious housing. This paper focuses upon the housing preferences expressed by the participants. A feminist standpoint perspective was adopted and thematic analysis was employed to interrogate the data. Findings showed the women’s primary preference is security of tenure in housing that is affordable and suited to their needs. Further, they want to feel they have autonomy in the private sphere. Over the participants’ life course, twin discourses of patriarchy and neoliberalism were identified as influential in shaping social arrangements, both in Australia and other developed countries. These findings may assist policy-makers in planning future housing for this ageing cohort.