Almshouse Resilient Communities (ARC) for the Future project
As the climate becomes more extreme, and ‘shock events’ such as pandemics more common, we need to boost resilience of communities as well as the built environment.
UCL has led a 30-month research project with seven community partners who provide high-quality accommodation for older residents. Some of these almshouse charities have been in place for hundreds of years, and from them, we have learnt much about resilience, not only for almshouse communities but for society more generally.
This Knowledge Hub on Resilience in Almshouse Communities provides a free resource to almshouse residents and staff, to social housing providers and to anyone interested in strengthening our communities to deal with change. The Hub presents 30 themes and a number of Case Studies relating to resilience, drawing on the words and experience of residents, staff and trustees in communities whose roots go back centuries and who are still developing and building new accommodation for their localities.
The project is the largest and most comprehensive research project with English almshouse communities.
Dr Niamh Murtagh, the Principal Investigator for the project, said:
‘We are delighted to announce the launch of the Knowledge Hub. We hope it will offer a valuable set of resources to anyone involved in providing housing for older people or, in fact, any form of social housing. The lessons we learnt from our wonderful almshouse community partners can be applied to any community. We looked at resilience through the lenses of social resilience, built environment resilience and governance resilience, and the themes in the Knowledge Hub acknowledge show how interconnected these are.”
Martyn Craddock, CEO of United St Saviour's Charity, said:
“The website looks amazing, and full of brilliant resources. We are proud to be hosting this on our website.”
Dr Alison Pooley, Chair of an Almshouse Charity and member of the research project team, said:
“This is a wonderful output for the project, really useful and totally unique in the world of almshouses!”
Dr Alison Pooley also joined this HAPPI Hour webinar on Ageing well: Creating Healthy Homes and Sustainable Healthier Neighbourhoods, where she provided a useful overview of the Knowledge Hub.