By Mark Hammond, Senior Lecturer at Manchester School of Architecture, Manchester Metropolitan University, and Niamh Kavanagh, Research Associate, University of Manchester

October 1^st is the UN International Day of Older Persons, a chance to celebrate the contributions older people have made to society, and reflect on how we can contribute to a good later life within their homes and neighbourhoods.

While much of the rhetoric we hear around an ageing population seems to highlight the challenges that it poses, it’s important to recognise that an ageing society is one of the greatest achievements of the last 100 years, a product of improvements in medical advances, public health, environmental improvements and safer housing, which the social housing sector can rightly say they have played a positive role in shaping.

There is, of course, much more to be done to make sure the social housing sector is best serving its older tenants. It’s paramount that social housing providers continue to grow their portfolio of older people’s housing options, with research from the National Housing Federation suggesting an additional 21,000 socially-rented homes for older people were needed annually to keep up with demand.

There are some great examples of innovation in the UK social housing sector, from the tireless work of Habinteg in pushing for greater standards in new-build housing through the Lifetime Homes initiative to Housing21’s recent work developing older people’s cohousing in Birmingham.

Despite this, we must recognise the significant numbers of older people who live in general needs housing and want to remain doing so as they age. Over the last decade, we’ve seen some housing associations show leadership in how they support ageing in place within their communities. For example, Southway Housing Trust’s long-running ‘Age-Friendly’ programme in South Manchester that’s formed a core component of their neighbourhood delivery strategy.

The age-friendly model, developed by the World Health Organisation in the mid-2000s, is an interesting one for social housing providers to consider – it recognises the importance of housing in promoting a good later life, but equally highlights the importance of looking across sectors to develop inter-disciplinary responses to ageing in place, with older people at the centre of decisions affecting their lives. The approach is increasingly popular in the UK, with 75 local and regional governments now members of the UK Network of Age-Friendly Cities.

For the last two years we’ve been working with registered providers and older people to develop ‘Co-Creating Age-Friendly Social Housing’ – a collaborative design research project aimed at developing novel ways for social housing providers and tenants to work together to support ageing in place. The project is working across three sites in Greater Manchester, with the research being funded by the Dunhill Medical Trust. The project team included members from Manchester Metropolitan University, University of Manchester, Southway Housing Trust, Stockport Homes, One Manchester, Greater Manchester Combined Authority, and community development charity CLASS.

One of the three case studies is Hopton Court, a nine-storey social housing tower block in Hulme, owned and managed by One Manchester Housing Association. Although not specifically designed for older people, 75% of tenants in Hopton Court are aged 50+, with the majority (96%) single households, a shift driven in part by the lack of other smaller or single-level properties in the area. It’s located in an area of Hulme with significant social, financial and health inequities, with hospital admissions for coronary heart disease and COPD around twice the national average, and many tenants experiencing social isolation and associated mental health challenges. Equally, however, the block has a group of very dedicated, passionate and creative tenants who are keen to come together to create a vibrant community that can support each other as they grow older.

Recognising the changes in age demographic, the tenants, One Manchester, community groups, a local GP practice and academics from the two Manchester universities came together to form the Ageing Well in Place in Hulme partnership, with tenants leading on a community survey to understand the needs and aspirations of older tenants in Hopton Court. This led the partnership to establish a Naturally Occurring Retirement Community (NORC) programme in the block. NORCs, a model well established in the USA, seek to proactively support ageing in place through a resident-led partnership model, combining integrated health and social care provision with a rich social programme that seeks to create inclusive, cohesive communities.

As part of the NORC programme, the partnership has attracted grant funding for One Manchester to employ two officers to work with tenants in Hopton Court – an independent living outreach worker (2021-2023), funded by Manchester City Council Adult Social Care and One Manchester, and a NORC development worker (2022-2024), funded by the Dunhill Medical Trust.

The independent living outreach worker (ILOW) aimed to provide individualised support for tenants, focused on ensuring they had full access to the services that existed locally. While support was on offer, in many cases Hopton Court tenants weren’t engaging with them due to a lack awareness, stigma, lack of confidence, language barriers or digital literacy issues. Over 13 months, the ILOW was able to improve connections with health and care providers, including supporting 26 residents to engage with preventative health services, working with GPs to create a list of vulnerable tenants who needed additional support, and worked with ambulances, carers and social support workers to make it easier for them to get into the block in emergencies.

The ILOW also aided 19 tenants to have adaptations and repairs undertaken in their properties and provided targeted support to help tenants access the financial and social support they’re entitled to, including previously unrecognised issues with fuel poverty and hunger experienced by some tenants. All of this was enabled by the ILOW building trust with tenants over time to identify and overcome the barriers that were preventing older tenants from engaging with services.

The NORC development worker (NDW) was tasked with working alongside tenants to codesign the NORC initiative and expanding engagement amongst the diverse population of the block. Through a person-centred engagement approach, which included learning how to say hello in eight different languages, the NDW was able to help tenants overcome specific barriers to participating. Through this, the tenants were supported to work together and support each other to build confidence and social connections, which later translated into tenants leading a series of community initiatives, such as a breakfast club, a gardening club and a community BBQ. Throughout the NDW’s tenure, we’ve seen tenants build interdependence and kinships with each other while also creating stronger relationships with external stakeholders, such as the local GP practice.

One of the core challenges faced by the tenants at Hopton Court has been the lack of social space to come together in. Hopton Court has no internal communal spaces, with activities often taking place in the shared gardens. Although there’s a community hall around 400m away, many tenants noted that even a short commute wasn’t something they felt comfortable with or were able to undertake. In response to this, One Manchester has committed to converting one of the ground floor flats into a community flat, to be led and managed by the tenants themselves. The plans have been signed off internally and are currently progressing through the planning system.

We believe the NORC programme at Hopton Court offers an exemplar of place-based support for ageing well, with the hyper-localised nature of the intervention allowing connections between health, financial, housing and social inequalities that are otherwise hidden. When working at a local level, tenants and workers are able to anticipate, identify and respond to multi-faceted problems experienced by older vulnerable social housing tenants through partnership and collaboration. Hopton Court NORC demonstrates how approaches grounded in intersectoral action, social participation and empowerment can have a transformative impact on communities, with clear benefits for tenants, local partners and wider health, care and housing systems.

Our analysis has demonstrated that the NORC programme at Hopton Court has supported a shift from reactive intervention to proactive engagement, avoiding the need for complex interventions when problems become acute because issues have been identified, anticipated and thus addressed in advance. This includes proactive mitigations against potential changes in health that might necessitate a costly move into specialist care facilities or prevent older tenants’ timely discharge from hospital should they need to be admitted.

Despite this, our analysis highlights the ongoing negative effects of precarious funding and staffing turnover as a barrier to maintaining and developing the NORC further. This recognises that while the community at Hopton Court has shown extraordinary commitment to the NORC programme, there are limits to what residents can deliver alone without a sustained commitment from other national, regional and local stakeholders.

To conclude, an ageing population has significant implications for the housing sector, and social housing providers must continue to show leadership in providing great places for their tenants to grow older. We must recognise that each generation of people reaching later life has different needs, aspirations and concerns, and that any programme supporting ageing in place needs to be co-produced with older people themselves. We believe genuine collaboration with older tenants isn’t just ethically important, but that it also provides an incredible platform for innovation, where together stakeholders and older people can begin to design a positive vision that supports ageing in place.