This report presents a series of recommendations for addressing the widely acknowledged crisis in housing quality in England and its impact on older people.
Despite the scale of the problem, the national framework for tackling the problem of poor-quality housing has fallen into disrepair. Funding has been cut, interventions have been withdrawn, advice and guidance is often hard to find, and enforcement of statutory duties has faltered.
In 2020, the Centre for Ageing Better launched the Good Home Inquiry, an evidence-based analysis of England’s housing policies to determine the causes of and solutions to the problem of poor-quality housing.
This study is one of a number commissioned by Ageing Better to support the work of the Inquiry. It set out to answer three key questions:
- What housing policies and programmes have been implemented in the past to address poor-quality housing, and which were successful and why?
- What policies would be most effective in addressing the poor-quality of our current housing stock, given political, economic and social considerations?
- For a small number of shortlisted policies, how much would this cost, who would have to pay, what would the impact be?
