Tackling poor-quality housing faced by England’s older minority ethnic communities
People from minority ethnic communities are more likely to be living in poor-quality homes. We need to improve their access to support, writes Nazia Azad from the Centre for Ageing Better.
People from minority ethnic communities are more likely to be living in poor-quality homes. We need to improve their access to support, writes Nazia Azad from the Centre for Ageing Better.
We have a poor-quality housing crisis in this country. Nearly 8 million people live in a dangerous home, approximately 2.6 million of whom are aged 55 and over.
And if you come from a Black, Asian and minoritised ethnic community background, you are more likely than most to know about the impact of poor-quality housing from personal experience.
Older people from this background are more than five times more likely to be living in housing deprivation.
That includes more than one in three (36%) Bangladeshi people and more than one in four (29%) Black African people and Pakistani people (27%) aged 50 and over, living in homes that are overcrowded, have shared facilities or which lack central heating.
This is compared with 3.5% of White British people of the same age group who are living in housing deprivation. Research commissioned by the Centre for Ageing Better revealed around half a million people aged 50 and above from Black, Asian and minoritised backgrounds are living in a home with one, or multiple, problems that could be making their existing health condition worse.
That is almost half (46%) of people from minority backgrounds with a health condition living in a property with at least one significant housing problem, compared to fewer than one in three (32%) of their White counterparts.
Wealth is a factor in the disproportionately high levels of poor housing endured by minority ethnic communities. But we also know that racism, in the form of systemic biases in policies, practices and allocation of resources also significantly contribute to poorer housing outcomes for racially marginalised communities.
At the Centre for Ageing Better, we believe a key solution to this housing crisis is for all communities across England to have access to a network of ‘one-stop-shops' covering all aspects of home improvements, which we call a Good Home Hub.
These easy-to-access hubs would offer advice on home repairs and adaptations including where to find trusted tradespeople, identifying what work needs to be done, how to finance repairs and improve energy efficiency.
To ensure these hubs are effective, they must be easy-to-access to all, and especially to those most in need of advice and solutions to their poor-quality housing problems.
The minority ethnic population is not homogenous and the type of support people need will often depend on personal circumstances.
Therefore, it is essential to establish truly inclusive Good Home Hubs that enable older people from any background to access the support to create a place to live that is warm and safe.
And so, in this year’s national Race Equality Week, the Centre for Ageing Better has launched a project with the Race Equality Foundation to ensure we can create inclusive Good Home Hubs.
The project will look at the current landscape of housing support and home improvements for people from minority ethnic backgrounds as well as the lived experiences of communities in trying to live in healthier, warmer, and safer homes.
The research will aim to uncover the motivations of minority ethnic communities when accessing home improvement services and what barriers might exist that prevent them from seeking help. The Race Equality Foundation will be working with partners to understand what local authorities and wider stakeholders involved in home improvement services must consider.
Our ambition for this work is to support and challenge local areas to design services through the lens of inclusion so that all communities can benefit from positive housing outcomes. This is an important consideration for local authorities to ensure inclusion and fairness.
But it is also an important consideration because this is an issue that is only going to grow bigger and more serious over time without action.
The number of people aged 60 and over from minority ethnic communities has increased by 80% since the 2011 Census and this figure is set to increase in coming decades with 1.6 million people from Black, Asian and minoritised backgrounds currently in their 40s.
Everyone needs a decent place to call home to help us to live and age well. And everyone should be able to access the help they need to make that a reality.