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Exploring housing policies in five Swedish municipalities: alternatives and priorities

INTRODUCTION: Housing shortage due to population growth within metropolitan areas, combined with an ageing population, has put pressure on current housing provision in Sweden. Thus, there is an urgent need to develop sustainable housing policies to accommodate the growing number of seniors in access...

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Autores principales: Heller, Christina, Ekstam, Lisa, Haak, Maria, Schmidt, Steven M., Slaug, Björn
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8827245/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35135523
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12672-5
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author Heller, Christina
Ekstam, Lisa
Haak, Maria
Schmidt, Steven M.
Slaug, Björn
author_facet Heller, Christina
Ekstam, Lisa
Haak, Maria
Schmidt, Steven M.
Slaug, Björn
author_sort Heller, Christina
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: Housing shortage due to population growth within metropolitan areas, combined with an ageing population, has put pressure on current housing provision in Sweden. Thus, there is an urgent need to develop sustainable housing policies to accommodate the growing number of seniors in accessible home environments. This study aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of how municipalities currently address housing accessibility issues and to explore what types of policy solutions they consider for the future. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Five Swedish municipalities were selected to represent a diversity of the population, housing provision approaches, and geographical areas. To understand current housing policies, two key actors (e.g. public officials, housing adaptation grant managers, city architects, etc.) from each municipality participated in semi-structured interviews (N = 10). Subsequently, those key actors, two senior citizens, and three researchers participated in a research circle to explore future policy solutions. Data were analyzed using content analysis. RESULTS: The interviews revealed common approaches to deal with housing accessibility issues such as regular renovations and maintenance, individual adaptations based on specific needs, and seeking collaboration with private housing actors on housing provision matters. Possible measures suggested for the future included increasing the national coordination of housing accessibility policies, amending legislation to only allow the construction of housing according to strengthened accessibility standards, and introducing economic incentives for seniors to move from housing with poor accessibility to more accessible accommodations. CONCLUSIONS: Municipalities struggle with the lack of accessible and affordable housing for their ageing population, despite a large variety of policies from economic incentives to research and development policies. The results suggest that collaboration needs to be improved between all actors involved in housing policies. Preventive measures within the current laws may be needed to strengthen the construction of more accessible and affordable housing for populations ageing in place.
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spelling pubmed-88272452022-02-10 Exploring housing policies in five Swedish municipalities: alternatives and priorities Heller, Christina Ekstam, Lisa Haak, Maria Schmidt, Steven M. Slaug, Björn BMC Public Health Research INTRODUCTION: Housing shortage due to population growth within metropolitan areas, combined with an ageing population, has put pressure on current housing provision in Sweden. Thus, there is an urgent need to develop sustainable housing policies to accommodate the growing number of seniors in accessible home environments. This study aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of how municipalities currently address housing accessibility issues and to explore what types of policy solutions they consider for the future. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Five Swedish municipalities were selected to represent a diversity of the population, housing provision approaches, and geographical areas. To understand current housing policies, two key actors (e.g. public officials, housing adaptation grant managers, city architects, etc.) from each municipality participated in semi-structured interviews (N = 10). Subsequently, those key actors, two senior citizens, and three researchers participated in a research circle to explore future policy solutions. Data were analyzed using content analysis. RESULTS: The interviews revealed common approaches to deal with housing accessibility issues such as regular renovations and maintenance, individual adaptations based on specific needs, and seeking collaboration with private housing actors on housing provision matters. Possible measures suggested for the future included increasing the national coordination of housing accessibility policies, amending legislation to only allow the construction of housing according to strengthened accessibility standards, and introducing economic incentives for seniors to move from housing with poor accessibility to more accessible accommodations. CONCLUSIONS: Municipalities struggle with the lack of accessible and affordable housing for their ageing population, despite a large variety of policies from economic incentives to research and development policies. The results suggest that collaboration needs to be improved between all actors involved in housing policies. Preventive measures within the current laws may be needed to strengthen the construction of more accessible and affordable housing for populations ageing in place. BioMed Central 2022-02-08 /pmc/articles/PMC8827245/ /pubmed/35135523 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12672-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Heller, Christina
Ekstam, Lisa
Haak, Maria
Schmidt, Steven M.
Slaug, Björn
Exploring housing policies in five Swedish municipalities: alternatives and priorities
title Exploring housing policies in five Swedish municipalities: alternatives and priorities
title_full Exploring housing policies in five Swedish municipalities: alternatives and priorities
title_fullStr Exploring housing policies in five Swedish municipalities: alternatives and priorities
title_full_unstemmed Exploring housing policies in five Swedish municipalities: alternatives and priorities
title_short Exploring housing policies in five Swedish municipalities: alternatives and priorities
title_sort exploring housing policies in five swedish municipalities: alternatives and priorities
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8827245/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35135523
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12672-5
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