Regeneration

Regen 22

Written evidence submitted by HACT Fit for Living Network

Summary

· Regeneration programmes need to encompass mechanisms/approaches that will effectively include low income older home-owners

· There is no national policy framework which addresses the new social phenomenon of high levels of low income home-ownership combined with increased longevity. This is needed to ensure the necessary co-ordination between a wide range of policy areas including housing, health, public health, social care, information and advice, financial services and tackling fuel poverty/the Green Deal

· If regeneration programmes do not encompass mechanisms/approaches that will effectively include low income older home-owners, significant additional costs will fall on services, most particularly health and social care

· The loss of private sector housing funding from 2011/12 [1] means that innovation and creativity will be needed to meet the needs of low income older home-owners living in poor and unsuitable housing

· The approach set out in the paper Regeneration to enable growth: What Government is doing in support of community-led regeneration will not address the needs of low income older home-owners living in poor and unsuitable housing which should be an integral component of regeneration

Background

HACT, (the Housing Action Charity), works with housing providers to improve the well-being and living conditions of poor and marginalised people [1] . HACT has a long track record of working on older people’s and private sector housing issues, right back to when the organisation was first established in the 1960s. This includes its role in supporting Care & Repair services as an innovative way of addressing poor private sector housing conditions.

HACT’s Fit for Living Network [2] is looking at new ways of improving the housing conditions and well-being of the most vulnerable and marginalised older home-owners who are living on low incomes in the poorest quality and most unsuitable housing conditions.

The Network brings together around 15 well-connected policy makers, practitioners and older activists engaged in housing, finance, care and support and home improvements for older people from across the public, private and voluntary and community sectors. A list of Network members is provided at Appendix 1.

The Network is focusing on identifying solutions that:

· are person-centred

· enable people to do things for themselves, i.e. a supportive self-help approach

· are evidence-based

· involve effective collaboration and partnership working

· can demonstrate impact

· provide value for money

· reflect the diversity of places in which older home-owners live

Why is there a need to focus on older home-owners living on low incomes and in poor/ unsuitable housing as part of regeneration programmes and approaches?

A growing number of older home-owners living on low incomes also live in poor and unsuitable housing. The preferred tenure of owner occupation in the UK today is working its way through the age groups, creating a situation which is new in both scope and scale.

How this group understands the options for meeting the cost of, and managing, home repairs, maintenance and adaptations is a growing social issue with significant social ramifications, particularly for health, social care and the well-being of the older people themselves, if it is not addressed. This is a group who, predominantly throughout their lives, have taken responsibility for themselves and their housing, but now find themselves unable to continue to do so without financial and practical assistance.

The following facts are particularly pertinent:

· Owner-occupation amongst lower income households has been encouraged for more than three decades. The shift from social renting to owner-occupation has resulted in low income home-owners outnumbering low income households who rent their homes. However, there is poor awareness about the lifetime costs and responsibilities of owning a home and there have been few changes in financial support in recognition of the shift towards more widespread home ownership

· Two-thirds of low income older households are home-owners [3]

· One in six low income home-owners lives in a home which is considered ‘non-decent’ and one in three live in homes that do not meet their needs in terms of accessibility or adaptations [4]

· A significant proportion of low income home-owners do not have significant equity in their homes to enable repairs, improvements or adaptations to be carried out

· Many older home-owners face significant problems when trying to maintain, repair and improve their homes and older home-owners with sensory impairment, dementia or other age-related conditions face particular challenges

· If the number of low income older home-owners living in poor and unsuitable homes is not to increase, with associated impacts on services such as social care and health, new, innovative financial models, policy frameworks and practice are needed. Impacts on social care and health include increased admissions to hospital, delayed discharge from hospital and increased demand on social care services including residential care

· Enabling vulnerable older home-owners to maintain and adapt their homes so that they can continue to live independently will generate significant savings in healt h and social care budgets, e.g

o a fall at home that leads to a hip fracture costs the state £28,665 on average - over 100 times the cost of installing hand and grab rails [5]

o where it is appropriate, postponing entry into residential care for one year saves an average of £28,080 per person [6]

o a hospital discharge service that enables older people to return to a safe and suitable home environment saves over £100 per day - the amount charged to local authorities when patients ‘block beds’ [7]

o just one year’s delay in providing an adaptation to an older person costs up to £4,000 in extra home care hours [8]

Developments in a number of policy areas including energy efficiency/tackling fuel poverty, public health, health and social care provide an opportunity to establish a focus on older low income home-owners and how they can be supported to remain safely and independently in their own homes for as long as they chose to do so. Specific examples worthy of note are:

· the Green Deal. Along with low-income private sector tenants, low-income homeowners are most at risk of experiencing fuel poverty. Exciting initiatives are already being developed that incorporate microgeneration and energy management, e.g. the London Rebuilding Society, Energy Saving Trust and Easy Town Shimmer scheme [9] . The Green Deal will provide an opportunity to scale up such initiatives

· the new arrangements for GP commissioning provide a significant opportunity to link health and housing in very practical ways to benefit older low income home-owners, through mechanisms such as repairs and adaptations on prescription and commissioning of minor repairs and improvements by GP consortia

How effective is the Government’s approach to regeneration likely to be? What benefits is the new approach likely to bring?

Regeneration programmes need to encompass mechanisms/approaches that will effectively include low income older home-owners, a growing number of whom live in poor and unsuitable housing and struggle to meet the cost of repairing and adapting their home so that they can stay living there for as long as they chose to do so.

If regeneration programmes fail to do this, the growth in the number of older home-owners living on low incomes and in poor housing will result in additional costs to services, most particularly health and social care, as well as costs to the individuals concerned, their families and the communities within which they live.

The loss of private sector housing funding from 2011/12 [10] means that innovation and creativity will be needed to meet the needs of low income older home-owners living in poor and unsuitable housing. This will need to involve new partnerships between private, public and civil society organisations and financial intermediaries.

There is no national policy framework which addresses the new social phenomenon of high levels of low income owner occupation combined with increased longevity. This is needed to ensure the necessary co-ordination between a wide range of policy areas including housing, health, public health, social care, information and advice, financial services and tackling fuel poverty/the Green Deal. A planning framework which sees addressing population ageing as an economic and social priority is needed.

The approach set out in the paper Regeneration to enable growth: What Government is doing in support of community-led regeneration will not address the needs of low income older home-owners living in poor and unsuitable housing which should be an integral component of regeneration. Within the document, the listing of programmes that provide support for vulnerable groups does not include any that focus on older people.

What lessons should be learnt from past and existing regeneration projects to apply to the Government’s new approach?

The 2003 report, Now You See Me…Now You Don’t [11] , examined how older people were faring in regeneration. The main finding of the report was that there were significant shortcomings in the extent to which older people were being engaged in regeneration of their housing or having their housing needs and aspirations met. These shortcomings must not be repeated in the new approach.