Building Resilient Futures: Insights from the Almshouse Resilient Communities (ARC) Project

In January 2023, Dr Niamh Murtagh (Principal Investigator, UCL) wrote a guest blog for the Housing LIN introducing the Almshouse Resilient Communities (ARC) for the Future project and explained why we were specifically looking at resilience within almshouse communities.

The ARC for the Future project, which was funded by Dunhill Medical Trust, has now come to an end, and we are delighted to be able to share our findings through a newly created Knowledge Hub (opens new window).

The ARC for the Future project took place over 30 months, starting in February 2022 and ending in July 2024. The project was led by University College London (UCL) with partners including the University of Suffolk and seven almshouse charities. The project was looking for examples of what worked, in terms of resilience, within the almshouse communities we worked with. During the project we spoke to 86 people in interviews, and 16 in focus groups from our seven charity partners, including residents, operational and senior staff and trustees. We wanted to hear the experiences of all these people involved in almshouses, and through interviews, focus groups and site visits we sought to understand what enhances resilience within almshouse communities.

Resilience involves more than just coping with challenges; it is about preparing in advance and learning from experiences to become stronger for future challenges; which for us meant considering significant local changes and challenges, especially those changes which can deeply impact older people.

Almshouses have a long history dating back over a thousand years, and today continue to provide housing for people in need, predominantly but not exclusively, for older people with limited means. There are over 1,600 charities providing housing for more than 36,000 residents currently living in almshouses, each charity having a unique offering within a local setting. With their long history, and specific charitable approach, almshouses provide a microcosm of community living, which enabled us as researchers to examine what works at each setting, and how that can be applied to other forms of housing and broader societal contexts.

During the project we gathered extensive data from our seven partner almshouse sites, and identified 30 themes which we collected into four overarching factors that contributed to resilience:

• valuing and supporting people,
• developing and strengthening community,
• enhancing the built environment,
• focusing on the future.

One critical issue is the security people feel, and includes financial security, physical security and the security that comes from connectedness - to each other as well as to place. A resilient community does not require every member to be individually resilient all the time and mutual support is crucial as individual resilience can vary over time and across different contexts. We have constructed the Knowledge Hub (opens new window) in a way that can be easily navigated, either through the main four factors for resilience, individual themes, or to meet the specific area of interest for the reader.

Feeling secure in your home, having opportunities to meet others, and connect with nature impact our lives. How we build resilience for the future is also reliant on what we build now. We know from previous research that good quality housing can make a difference to peoples’ lives, and our research contributes to a better understanding of how that can happen.

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You may also be interested in this HAPPI Hour webinar on Ageing well: Creating Healthy Homes and Sustainable Healthier Neighbourhoods in which Dr Alison Pooley demonstrated the Almshouse Resilient Communities (ARC) knowledge hub. 

For more information on Almshouses, visit: https://www.housinglin.org.uk/Topics/browse/Housing/HousingforOlderPeople/Almshouses/