The Leeds Older People’s Forum Housing Working Group, along with Leed Council and Care & Repair England, organised a “listening event” in July.The aim was to give older people from across the City the opportunity to feed in their views on what their home means to them and what should feature in a Leeds older persons’ housing strategy.
Over 50 people came along. After introductory remarks from Cllr Charlwood (Adult Social Care), Bill Rollinson introduced the guest speakers: Rachael Docking, from the Centre for Ageing Better, talked about the need for housing that is fit for purpose and referred to the cost of poor housing to the NHS, which currently stands at £1.4 billion per annum. Lucy Jackson, Public Health Leeds, then spoke about the ongoing work being done between the council and the older people’s forum to progress a housing strategy for older people.
The delegates worked on round tables to discuss what sort of housing older people want to live in, what living well means for older people in their own home and what advice, information and support they might need to help this happen. A number of case studies, provided by Care & Repair Leeds, were then discussed on the tables.
Cllr Coupar, (Housing) gave the concluding remarks and undertook that the outputs of the event would be written up and would help to inform the development of the strategy.
John Welham
Older People and Housing Action 