Our Future Homes: Housing that promotes wellbeing and community for an ageing population

Six months on from the submission of recommendations to the previous government, the new government has released the independent Older People’s Housing Taskforce report, ‘Our Future Homes: Housing that promotes wellbeing and community for an ageing population’, highlighting an urgent need for age-appropriate housing solutions.

In a statement made by Matthew Pennycook, Minister of State for Housing and Planning, the Government also published its response to the report on boosting the supply of housing for older people here (opens new window).

Launched in May 2023 at Grace House in St John’s Wood, the Taskforce was chaired by Professor Julienne Meyer who, along with 18 sector experts, including the Housing LIN’s CEO, Jeremy Porteus, came together to harness their considerable knowledge and experience to investigate measures that can boost the volume, quality and range of housing choices for older people and age-friendly neighbourhoods for later living. The evidence was collated during the year-long investigation and the resultant findings and recommendations are now out.

Key findings from the report include:

• Our older population is growing and becoming more diverse. Over 65s are 18.6% of our population (up 2% points in ten years), with 8% born outside the UK.
• Limited supply of older people’s housing. We need an estimated 30-50,000 new later living homes per annum to meet this growth – but only build around 7,000 per year.
• Living in under-occupied housing. Nearly 9 in 10 people aged 65-79 live in under-occupied housing, with over 50% living in homes with two or more excess bedrooms.
• Current offer is unaffordable for most senior citizens. New research by the Taskforce shows current private leasehold older people’s housing options are unaffordable for the majority of English households aged 75 years and over.
• Internationally behind. Around 0.6% live in Housing with Care in the UK – a tenth of the proportion in more mature markets such as the USA, Australia and New Zealand.
• Benefits of later living homes. The vast majority of over 65s – more than nine out of ten – currently live in mainstream housing – missing individual health benefits of older people’s housing and potential to save costs due to avoidable hospital admissions.
• Living in age-inappropriate housing. Only 12% of senior citizens had level access to the entrance of their building; less than half a bathroom on the entry level of their home.
• Not planning for the future. Older people are unaware of the options available to them and admit to ‘burying their heads’ as to their future housing needs.

There are also 83 recommendations clustered into 9 core themes and an overarching one. In summary, they are:

Core recommendations

1. Standardise definitions of Older People’s Housing/Later Living Homes (OPH/LLH) for both a professional audience and older citizens, in particular to make terms more easily understood and clearer.
2. Incentivise a wide range of OPH/LLH options; from community-led housing options and the suitability of the overall housing stock for people as they age to setting targets and investing in affordable housing and specialist housing to adapting and improving existing homes for later life. 
3. Ensure more housing is designed for later life; from implementing Part M4(2)/M4(3) of the Building Regulations to designing for age-friendly, HAPPI and digital-ready homes.
4. Create age-friendly, dementia-inclusive, faith and culture sensitive communities; from dementia-friendly communities to age-friendly neighbourhoods in local design and spatial planning.
5. Expand OPH/LLH at scale and ensure it is affordable to live in, and viable to finance, build and operate; from expanding affordable provision and creating greater tenure diversity to incentives that support ‘rightsizing’ and flexibilities to aid development, lending and to overcome hurdles that accelerate supply.
6. Strengthen planning policies; from strengthening planning guidance and presumptions in favour to guidance on use classes and support for assessing need.
7. Establish a national information platform and local hubs; from access to a 'Which?' style national resource to local community hubs to improve availability of information and advice.
8. Build consumer confidence; exploring the need for specific legislation/regulation for the sector that enhances product quality and supports market certainty and also provides greater consumer protection/confidence.
9. Enhance innovation, research and professional development: from a 10 year national programme and strategy, supported by research and innovation, to enabling regional and local networks that support learning and improvement.
10. Overarching recommendation - Create collective leadership to drive change: from championing a National Strategy for An Ageing Population and supporting local Memorandum of Understanding across housing, health and social care to inter-departmental working in government and better engagement with older citizens as part of an Office for an Ageing Population.

Jeremy Porteus, CEO of Housing LIN, commented: 

"I am incredibly honoured to have served on the Taskforce and to contribute to shaping a vision for older people’s housing in this country. However, our task doesn’t conclude with the publication of these reports. It’s the start of a new chapter to mobilise the recommendations and create the right conditions for more age-friendly housing, communities and a range of services and products that enable people to live with greater independence as they age, in a place they can call home.

And, building on the age-inclusive HAPPI and TAPPI  principles, I look forward to signalling how the Housing LIN will help translate the Taskforce’s recommendations and the measures the government has outlined so we can support sector learning and improvement."

For more about the Taskforce’s report, the accompanying Ministerial Statement, the supporting documentation and background information about the Terms of Reference, click on the links below.