First published in 1983 by George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd.
This edition first published in 2022
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1983 A. Butler, C. Oldman and J. Greve
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ISBN: 978-1-03-203381-5 (Set)
ISBN: 978-1-00-321681-0 (Set) (ebk)
ISBN: 978-1-03-204817-8 (Volume 7) (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-03-204827-7 (Volume 7) (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-00-319480-4 (Volume 7) (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003194804
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A. Butler, C. Oldman and J. Greve, 1983
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First published in 1983
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Butler, Alan
Sheltered housing for the elderly.(National Institute social services library; no. 44)
1. AgedEnglandDwellings
I. Title II. Oldman, Christine
III. Greve, John IV. Series
363.59 HD7287.92.G7
ISBN 0043620558
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Butler, Alan, 1946-
Sheltered housing for the elderly.
(National Institute social services library; 44)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. AgedGreat BritainDwellings. I. Oldman,
Christine. II. Greve, John. III. Title. IV. Series:
National Institute social services library; no. 44)
HD7287.92.G7B87 1983 363.59 838762
ISBN 0043620558
Set in 10 on 11 point Times by Grove Graphics, Tring, Hertfordshire
and printed in Great Britain
by Billing and Sons Ltd, London and Worcester
Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
SHELTERED HOUSING
This book is based on a comprehensive study of sheltered housing for the elderly in England and Wales. The study was carried out over a four-year period from the autumn of 1977 by a research team from the University of Leeds.
Sheltered housing for the elderly is but one of many categories of housing, but its characteristics are by no means precisely defined or immutable, as we shall make plain later. Moreover, sheltered housing manifests a considerable and growing diversity of types and functions.
We define three elements as distinguishing sheltered housing for the elderly from other categories of housing, namely: a resident warden, an alarm system fitted to each dwelling, and the occupancy of dwellings being restricted to elderly persons. Another typical, but not universal, feature is that the dwellings are grouped on one site whether on the ground or in blocks of flats. Sheltered housing has usually been purpose-built, but some has been created through the conversion or adaptation of existing housing a method which is likely to become more common in the foreseeable future both in response to economic stringencies and as a means of making effective use of the housing stock.
Like other forms of social provision, sheltered housing for the elderly can be better understood when it is placed in the broader political, administrative and economic contexts within which it is shaped and must operate.
THE BROADER CONTEXT
In their formulation and implementation and, not least, in the form in which they finally reach the individual social policies are shaped and altered by a multitude of pressures. Some of these pressures, like economic necessity or the changing age-structure of the population, are readily identifiable. The part played by other factors, such as political expediency, may be less easy to determine. Others again are more subtle or more difficult to chart. For instance, variations in administrative practice, differences in the interpretation of policy goals on guidelines by administrators and other personnel, the exercise of discretion, neglect, incompetence, and shortfall in the execution of tasks, all of these also shape and reflect policy as it is transmitted along the networks of organisational processes from conception to delivery.
An important result of the interplay on social policies of the multitude of shaping influences many of them inconsistent, transitory or unstable is that there are wide differences in the way people (the target groups or individuals) are treated: how their needs are assessed, the criteria of eligibility, and in the nature, quantity and quality of aid they receive.
INEQUALITIES
While policy objectives and administrative intentions may be defined in egalitarian terms, there is abundant evidence that the outcomes of policy and of administrative or professional action are profoundly unequal, and that the operations of the policy delivery system (the service) the activities of administrators and other key personnel, and the design and nature of the organisational machinery itself contribute very substantially to the creation and maintenance of these inequalities of outcome.
Over the past two or three decades evidence of inequalities in treatment and outcome has been mounting and is now formidable in volume. Indeed, the extensiveness and persistence of unacceptable (in social policy terms) inequalities among the target groups the elderly, the sick, people on low incomes, the poorly housed, and the educationally disadvantaged -have become one of the major causes for concern in the social policy field.
Elderly people figure prominently among the disadvantaged and deprived. They are heavily over-represented in sub-standard and inadequate housing, among low-income groups, and among those needing help from the personal and health services. But while, proportionately, their need for assistance in respect of income, housing, health care or social care, may be greater than that of younger age-groups, people over the age of 60 or 65 differ from each other as much as do those of under pensionable ages. This is something which society should take into account in its attitudes towards the elderly and which should inform the personal, health and housing services in dealing with old people.
