ABSTRACT
The principle that older people should be able to live in their own homes as far as possible, is central to most health and welfare policies for the elderly. The home environment is seen as playing an important contributory role in the general ‘well-being’ and the physical and mental health of older people. However, beyond this assertion, the nature of the person-home relationship in later life is little understood. Of the growing literature on the home (Hayward, 1977; Kron, 1983; Sixsmith, 1984; Altman and Werner, 1985), only a few studies have addressed the issue of old age (Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton, 1981; Peace et al., 1983). There is a need, it would seem, for systematic research that reaches below the surface of ‘belongingness’ to reveal the essential qualities of home in later life.
