Housing Governance and Senses of Home in Older Age: The Provider Scale

ABSTRACT

Extensive research examines senses of home in aging, focusing on built and care environments. In parallel, a body of work examines housing governance, reviewing degrees of resident satisfaction. However, there is little crossover between this work, with governance research only rarely considering senses of home. This article argues for attention to the interconnections between provider-scale housing governance and senses of home in older age, arguing that governance mechanisms structure the housing context and provide the framework through which home is experienced and lived. Through a case study of a small, affordable housing community in Sydney, Australia, it shows that housing governance can profoundly shape senses of home in aging, both contributing to and diminishing senses of home. Further, it points to a connection between housing governance and housing design with different housing typologies associated with different aging bodies and forms of management practice, with profound implications for residents' senses of home.

KEYWORDS:

• Housing governance
• sense of home
• homemaking
• care
• tenancy
• ageing

Acknowledgments

My thanks to the residents and staff who took part in the research, sharing their experiences and ideas candidly, and to the former UnitingCare Ageing NSW.ACT who saw the value of this type of investigation. Thanks also to the anonymous referees, whose insights were valued, and to Fiona Webber for excellent research assistance.

Funding

The research was funded by the former UnitingCare Ageing NSW.ACT.

Notes

¹ This discussion of housing governance focuses on management processes operating at the scale of the housing provider. Beer (2012) describes this as a “conventional” understanding of housing governance.

² In this context, affordable housing offers rents 20% below the normal market value in the locality.

³ Independent living units (ILUs) are small residential spaces that typically include one or more bedrooms, a living space, kitchen, and bathroom and that are inhabited by older people who are able to live independently, though they may receive some individual care support. ILUs are typically grouped together, for example, in a retirement village.

⁴ While residents are identified with a number, staff are referred to only through the identifier “Staff” and no identifying details are provided about any staff member. While it is acknowledged that this makes it difficult to identify the contributions of individual staff, the measure was necessary to ensure the perspectives of staff (who were known to each other) remained confidential at all times. As such, effort has been made to ensure that a cross-section of representative quotes was used in this article. When several quotes are grouped together, they are from unique staff members.

⁵ It is again important to note that care staff and practices were rated very highly by all residents, and they expressed satisfaction about the community overall.