Stimulating collaborative housing for and by seniors

Abstract

The Netherlands is rapidly ageing, while at the same time, seniors themselves are also changing in comparison to previous generations, leading to changing housing demands. Collaborative housing addresses several of these new demands effectively. Nonetheless, collaborative housing is laborious and risky. Therefore, this research investigates how to improve collaborative housing and its development process, in the context of seniors. The main research question is “How can young seniors positively contribute to the realisation process of appropriate housing for themselves?”, where a preference is made for appropriate housing being collaborative housing. Additionally, the research focuses on seniors between the ages of 55 and 65. The main research question is answered through the following five sub research questions:
What are the housing demands of young seniors, and through which criteria’s do they judge their environment?
How will the housing demands of young seniors change over the coming decades? What government policies affect the match, and how? What are the key constraints affecting the development process? How can the constraints be alleviated? 
The research takes an empirical, qualitative approach. To operationalise the research questions, Grounded Theory is adopted, with a range of methods and data collection methods: desk research and interviews. The objective of the research is to create knowledge for seniors and external actors involved with these projects, about the nature and common pitfalls of these development processes. The findings show that there are eight aspects of housing that are important to seniors: apartment in a unique building, 70-100m2, a green/sustainable environment, on the edge of town, privacy-oriented, future-proof, with influence on resident selection, and a diverse group of residents. Seven motivations were discovered: positive reinforcement, exploration - new activities - new people, enjoyment, support, cognitive vitality, a chance to redesign life, and the fact that children moved out. From both the government and market perspective, it became clear that there will be more seniors, and that their housing demands will further diversify over the coming decades. Government entities seem to focus on the demographic aspects of the developments, where all entities except provinces seem to have a good amount of knowledge. The market focuses more on the solution required for these demographic changes. Seniors can count on direct and indirect policies, where the majority of policies are of a financial nature (loan, grants and guarantees). There are some ‘ecosystem’ policies in place. One direct policy from the national government provides significant financial support, while most other direct and indirect policies are less significant. Twenty-five constraints were found, present over five constraint categories: economic, legal, process, social, and communicative. Based on presence of constraints across phases, five constraints were found to be most impactful. To alleviate the constraints, 24 tasks were found for residents, and three for municipalities. The tasks occur mostly in the early phases of the projects, and the majority of them involve external advisors. In conclusion, seniors should seek to organise their resident group as professionally as possible, and where possible, “import” the necessary knowledge.