ABSTRACT
It might be argued that the grievous housing problems of the midnineteen eighties have less affected older people than other sections of the community. Monetarism applied to housing policy results in the provision of public money for housing only to those in special need. The elderly are seen, and have been seen for some time, as the deserving poor and thus it seems to be right that they should be the recipients of what meagre support is being made available within housing programmes. Certainly there is a great deal of talk, and even excitement about a range of housing initiatives in the 1980s for older people. The Department of Environment film ‘Housing for the Elderly’, first shown in 1983, concludes: ‘Never has there been so much choice for old people’. The burden, however, of this chapter is that such assumptions about older people and their housing lives are, sadly, much exaggerated. Moreover it will be argued that the housing problems of old people which in reality are growing, not diminishing, have largely been converted or diverted into ‘care’ problems.
