Ahead of Joan Bakewell’s personal report for Panorama, ‘The Generation Game’, which is on tonight on BBC 1 at 8.30pm, Councillor John Lines, Cabinet Member for Housing, says the key to providing housing for older people is to integrate and tailor services within the community as part of the ‘big society’.
As prime minister David Cameron has been telling us, the coalition government’s concept of a ‘big society’ is about citizens, communities and local governance coming together to strengthen our neighbourhoods. Ensuring that we take care of older people within society is integral to achieving this ambition.
Over the next 20 years it is estimated that 25 per cent more older people will be living alone. We know these people want to have their own home with their own front door but, despite this, their house can increasingly seem like a prison and they can become disengaged from the very communities that should help them.
We don’t want people to have to leave their homes, so the only way they can stay is to ensure they are living happy and healthy lives in supportive communities.
Knowledge is power
In Birmingham the number of people over the age of 85 will rise by 50 per cent in the next 20 years. This is above the national average and means we have had to think ‘big’ to offer choice when it comes to housing.
In order to develop our ‘Housing in later life’ strategy housing officers carried out extensive consultation on what older people want and need. We engaged with thousands of people and went beyond the usual focus groups by attending social gatherings for older people to seek their views.
The ethnic profile of Birmingham and the fact that this is not represented in traditional sheltered housing led us to target black, minority and ethnic elders too.
Our studies showed that people in later life do not want a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution. They want a range of quality housing and support options. They want integrated services for housing, support and advice focused on well-being to help them to remain fit, active and healthy for longer. Quality of life was paramount – not necessarily the number of years lived.
This idea of a more rounded approach to care and support reflects the ‘big society’ concept. It brings services to grass roots level where we can tailor care to local needs and hand responsibility to the community to decide what they need and how it can be provided.
Integrated care
At Birmingham Council, we believe one way to integrate support for people in later life and help them to be part of the local community is through extra care villages. We opened our first at New Oscott, in north Birmingham, in March, in partnership with Extra Care Charitable Trust, Midland Heart and the Homes and Communities Agency. We are also in the process of building another two in Birmingham with Housing 21.
The villages are purpose built communities – not just housing for people in later life – with facilities that both they and the local community can use. They provide the freedom for people to live independently but with professional and home care staff on hand and the usual emergency alarm systems for added piece of mind.
Birmingham’s extra care villages are tenure blind, meaning there is no visible difference between the social, affordable and market properties. They consist of one and two-bed properties as there are currently very few two-bed properties for older people in the market. Residents are able to enjoy a high quality of life with a restaurant, café, bar, gym, IT suite, library, hairdresser and activity rooms. They can entertain their family and friends and enjoy a hectic schedule of activities, all of which are voluntary.
The need for such schemes are clear. We have already had more than 2,000 households register their interest in the first of Birmingham’s developments.
Aside from the physical security and the sense of community, there is the benefit of staff and carers tackling taboos around social isolation, loneliness and mental frailty.
The bigger picture
Extra care villages take the dilemma of housing for older people and have proved a winning solution for everyone involved.
Building these kinds of projects also has the effect of stimulating the local job market. Our village at New Oscott alone provided around 200 construction jobs and a further 70 jobs for local people within the centre once it opened. Some of the staff are themselves quite mature, over 80 in some cases, as there are no age barriers there to employment.
Cuts to Supporting People funding mean keeping older people within their communities – so society can pick up some of the support that would previously have been offered through the state will be even more integral to the housing options we provide.
At the Chartered Institute of Housing conference in Harrogate last month, housing minister Grant Shapps said housing is the ‘big society’. Mr Shapps, I couldn’t agree with you more.
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Belinda, I’d be really interested in finding out more about the work you did to meet the needs of BME elders- the Race Equality Foundation has recently launched the Better Housing (www.better-housing.org.uk) website and this is just the sort of research we’re interested in. Please do get in touch.
Kat (katherine@racefound.org.uk)