Reflections on creating housing and communities for an ageing demographic

One of the many challenges we face as a society is ensuring that our homes and communities are suitable for an ageing population. This is not just about bricks and mortar; it’s also about creating spaces where people can live well, maintain independence, and feel a part of a thriving, multi-generational community.

The vision shared by #Social Care Future (opens new window) encapsulates this perfectly:

We all want to live in the place we call home, with the people and things we love, in communities where we look out for each other, doing the things that matter to us.

A personal story: planning a home for a lifetime

My father started his working life as a plumbing contractor, later becoming a building surveyor for a local authority.  Having a smart, practical and well-maintained home was always really important to him. One day, in the early 1980s when he would have been about 40, he came home with a bundle of lengths of UPVC skirting board. My mother, ever the traditionalist, looked on in horror. “You can’t possibly be thinking of replacing all our wooden skirting boards with plastic”, she exclaimed. But that was indeed his intention. Why? Because it was part of his broader plan to make their home as accessible and easy to maintain as he could. He’d already installed an additional bathroom on the ground-floor when my younger sister was born - “it’ll be easier when you’re both playing outside and need to nip to the loo - and for my old age, of course”, he mused. And he wanted to make things as low-maintenance as possible, because, he said, “I won’t be able to bend as easily to gloss the skirtings when I’m 80…”

Now, in the 21st century, we might, from an environmental perspective, debate his choice of materials. But this act of planning ahead wasn’t just about practical convenience. He had already decided that this was his “forever home” and couldn’t imagine moving away from his family and his community. He was doing it from the perspective of what was important to him: a neat and well-maintained home. How many of us think that far ahead? How many of us plan our homes to fit our future needs, ensuring that we can continue living in the places and communities we love?  And are we being enabled to do so?

The importance of housing for an ageing population

The Dunhill Medical Trust has long had age-friendly housing and healthier later life outcomes at the centre of its mission. In 2020, as we were adjusting to the new realities of COVID-19, we, with the Social Care Institute for Excellence and others, launched the Commission on the Role of Housing in the Future of Care and Support (opens new window) (“the Commission”). This initiative called for a shift in how we view housing, particularly in the context of older people. A central argument was that every decision about care should also be a decision about housing. In this context, housing was not being thought of as simply a place to live, but as somewhere that would be integral to our well-being, health, and social connection. In the words of one of the Commissioners “We don’t want to simply create ‘islands of the old’”.

The recently published report of the Older People’s Housing Taskforce (opens new window) (“the Taskforce”) has outlined a vision for Our Future Homes: housing that promotes well-being and strengthens the fabric of our communities. This vision is particularly important as we think about the diverse needs of older people – and indeed communities which are becoming more culturally diverse. It’s not just about building more homes—it’s about creating spaces that offer comfort, security, and the flexibility to adapt over time.

The role of design, technology and co-production

One of the key design frameworks in this area is the Housing our Ageing Population: Panel for Innovation (HAPPI) principles, which has been in place for well over a decade. The HAPPI principles focus on 10 key design criteria. Familiar to anyone who values good design - the principles include things like ample natural light, good ventilation, availability of storage, and spacious layouts - they take on added importance when thinking about housing for an ageing population. These principles ensure that housing can adapt as individuals' needs evolve over time.

But in the 21st century, we need to add technology to these principles as it increasingly plays a pivotal role in connecting communities and supporting older people to live independently. Initiatives like our TAPPI (Technology for an Ageing Population: Panel for Innovation) programme sought to explore how people could maintain their autonomy by leveraging technology to help them to do the things they enjoy and stay connected to their communities. Through co-production, older people, living in a variety of settings, were empowered to shape the technology and support they needed, ensuring that these solutions were not just effective, but also aligned with their preferences and lifestyles.

The programme found that technology cannot (successfully) be implemented in isolation, it needs to be built on the foundations of connection and co-production. Led by the older people involved in the programme, it proposed a new set of enabling principles: Safe, Seamless, Affordable, and Supported. Combining these with HAPPI’s design principles, we believe we have the ingredients to construct a framework and set of resources that ensures that the places in which we live can help us all to thrive as we age.

Beyond reports and recommendations: taking action

We’ve seen decades of reports and recommendations calling for enabling regulations and top-down solutions – and these are important – but much can be done at the community level (bottom-up). There are already inspiring examples of communities, both in the UK and overseas, that have embraced the challenge of creating spaces where older people can age in place. However, these examples need to be expanded and amplified – not least to give others the confidence to do similarly.

To this end, we need to focus on showcasing and supporting the pioneers - the individuals and communities – who have had the courage and the will to make change. The work of organisations like Housing LIN is already helping to shine a light on these important changes, but we need more evidence, more action, more collaboration, more flexible capital, and more innovative thinking.

So, I’m delighted to be announcing that our Flagship Programme for our next strategic plan period, in collaboration with the Housing LIN, will focus on creating resources and providing funding for testbed locations to do just that. By fostering partnerships between local authorities, developers, Integrated Care Boards, community groups and others (with the voice of older people placed front and centre), we can build on more than a decade of learning and recommendations from HAPPI, TAPPI, the Commission, the Taskforce and others to create more opportunities for housing that truly meets the needs of us all.

A vision for the future

The future of housing for all of us is not just about physical structures – although these are important – but about creating well-designed and technology-enabled places which adapt to people’s needs over a lifetime. It’s also about innovation in the financial mechanisms to enable the different sectors and organisations involved in doing this to work together. But that’s for another time and another blog!

It’s time for all of us to start thinking about the future of our homes and communities, ensuring that they are places we can shape where we can all live, age, and thrive.

Let’s get on with it.

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Susan spoke and co-chaired the afternoon Sector Showcases at the Housing LIN Festival of Ideas on Age-friendly Homes and Connected Communities on Wednesday, 26 March 2025 in London.