A comparison of Spanish and American Housing Policy Frameworks Addresing Housing for the Elderly

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A Comparison of Spanish and AmericanHousing Policy Frameworks Addressing

Housing for the Elderly

Mª Luisa Gómez JiménezC. Theodore Koebel

ABSTRACT. Housing policies in Spain and the United States have im-portant similarities and dissimilarities that affect housing for the elderly.Spain, even more so than the United States, promotes homeownership.Both countries face significant challenges in addressing the housingneeds of the elderly, particularly those challenges associated with agingin place. The paper reviews the broader housing policy frameworks inboth countries in order to understand the context for elderly housingpolicy. The paper identifies lessons from the American experience thatcan expand housing policies in Spain. doi:10.1300/J081v20n04_03 [Arti-cle copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service:1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <[email protected]> Website:<http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rightsreserved.]

KEYWORDS. Elderly housing, comparative policy, social housing, Spain

INTRODUCTION

Spain, even more so than the United States, promotes homeownership.About 81% of households in Spain are homeowners compared to 69% in the

Mª Luisa Gómez Jiménez, PhD, (E-mail: [email protected]), is affiliatedwith the Universidad de Málaga, Málaga, Spain. C. Theodore Koebel, PhD, (E-mail:[email protected]) is affiliated with the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Journal of Housing for the Elderly, Vol. 20(4) 2006Available online at http://jhe.haworthpress.com

© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1300/J081v20n04_03 23

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United States. Seniors in both countries are overwhelmingly owner-occupantsof their housing but housing problems are persistent. Urbanization and in-creases in the elderly populations result in new challenges in meeting elderlyhousing needs. Additionally, housing prices have risen dramatically in bothcountries, pushing concerns about affordability to the center of policy debates.The purpose of this article is: to compare the public policy environments inSpain and America in addressing the provision of housing and the similaritiesbetween the societies in achieving affordable and suitable housing for seniors.

Despite programmatic differences, housing policy in Spain and the UnitedStates shares two common themes in addressing the housing needs of theelderly. First, there is the commitment to the overall purpose of assuring ade-quate housing. Second, there is a commitment to action by the public sector,either to assist the private market in providing adequate housing or to providesuch housing directly. Additionally, the elderly population is increasing inboth countries and must be a priority in the design of public policies governingurbanism and housing.

We have divided this article in two parts. The first discusses the generalgoals of housing policy in both countries. This section sets the overall policycontext in which housing policies for the elderly are developed. The secondand main part of the article compares housing policies in the specific contextof housing for the elderly. To identify proper goals for housing policy for se-niors, we consider three main factors whose interaction can determine, fromour point of view, a suitable housing policy: The subject and the instrumentsof the housing policy and the interrelationship between subject and instru-ment. The subject is, as stated, the housing needs of seniors. This requires aproper conceptualization of seniors’ housing needs in order to determine anappropriate housing typology and to establish their standing as a targeted col-lective protected in the legal system. The instrument is decent quality housingoccupied by seniors, but this can be achieved through a diversity of ap-proaches to establish adequate shelter in both countries. The interrelation-ships between the subject of housing policy and the instruments of policyare structured by the legal, cultural, economic, and organizational contextsthat help to shape the interests, rights, financial arrangements, and preferencesthat can determine tenure choice, aging in place, and moving in order to adjusthousing consumption. Housing consumption in both countries largely relieson markets operating to provide the units in the desired place, which is in turndependent on the land market and on urbanization policies. When the interac-tions of these factors leave gaps in the production of suitable houses forseniors, housing and urbanization policies need to address how these specificgaps can be corrected.

24 JOURNAL OF HOUSING FOR THE ELDERLY

HOUSING AS AN ESSENTIAL ELEMENTOF PUBLIC POLICY

Housing Policy as Enabling and AugmentingMarket Provision

The policy contexts and diversity of specific policies in both countries aretoo complex to allow easy comparisons and any comparison requires somesimplification of their political and cultural contexts. Both countries are gov-erned by constitutions that establish governmental responsibilities (and rela-tionships) at national and local levels. Local government in the United Statesincludes the states and their subdivisions (counties, cities, towns). In Spain,sub-national governance includes the Autonomous Communities (ComunidadAutónoma), provinces, and municipalities. The 17 Autonomous Communitiesestablish a regional governance structure that has some parallels to regionalgovernance powers of the 50 states in the United States.

Articles 148 and 149 of the Spanish Constitution provide the AutonomousCommunities exclusive powers on urbanism and housing affairs (BassolsComa, 1982, 1989). This means that the nation as a whole can promote a spe-cific housing policy but the Autonomies establish the specific legislation andplans to attend to all the needs of their citizens. The United States has demon-strated a similar tension between national and local governments, as reflectedin the restriction of the federal government to an enabling role (primarilythrough subsidies and tax policies) in the production of social housing and theprimacy of local government in land use and urbanization policy. Conse-quently, both the Spanish Housing Ministry (established in 2004) and the U.S.Department of Housing and Urban Development (established in 1965) focuson financial support and coordination while regional governments (Spanishautonomies and U.S. states) and municipalities are charged with implementa-tion of housing policy.

The United States and Spanish constitutions also define the rights of citi-zens. Article 47 of the Spanish Constitution establishes the right of everySpaniard to a proper, suitable and decent house, and the responsibility of gov-ernment to establish standards and regulations to effectuate this right. “AllSpaniards have the right to enjoy decent and adequate housing. The publicauthorities shall promote the necessary conditions and establish appropriatestandards in order to make this right effective, regulating land use in accor-dance with the general interest in order to prevent speculation. The communityshall have a share in the benefits accruing from the town-planning policies ofpublic bodies.”

Mª Luisa Gómez Jiménez and C. Theodore Koebel 25

Nevertheless, it is important to bear in mind that the right to housing inSpain is not a “fundamental” right. Citizens cannot go to the government orthe political powers to enforce their right to housing just because the Constitu-tion refers to it (Garcia de Enterría, 1980). Instead, affordable housing is a goalof the Spanish welfare state. Article 47 of the Spanish Constitution enables theright to housing as a principle of social and economic policy that the publicpowers (national, regional, and municipal) are charged to fulfill. This involvesthe direct intervention of government in the market through a strategy of en-abling the competences of the national state, the Autonomous Communities,and the local authorities. Additionally, the Spanish Constitution clearly identi-fies the public responsibility for regulating both urbanism and housing asinterconnected and, thus, urbanism is considered one of the policy instrumentsto achieve a proper and suitable housing supply (Gómez Jiménez, 2006).

The U.S. Constitution does not establish a right to housing and is largelysilent about housing. The Bill of Rights establishes the right of the people to besecure in their houses against unreasonable search and seizures, and againstthe peacetime quartering of soldiers in any house without the consent of theowner. The 5th and 14th Amendments protect against taking of property bygovernment without due process of law or just compensation. Although the1949 Housing Act declared a national “goal of a decent home and suitable livingenvironment for every American family,” the United States has never adopteda right to housing and opposed the endorsement of such a right by the UN Con-ference on Human Settlements (Hartman, 1998). A presidential review in1970 demonstrably rejected a national housing production goal and embracedthe use of private production and market incentives to correct any residualhousing problems associated with inadequate incomes or market failures.

In Spain and the United States, housing legislation can be complex(Mandelker, 1979; Bassols, 1973) and housing is addressed widely as an eco-nomic policy. Enabling the promotion of housing is common in both systems,although there are substantial differences in the tools used to achieve desiredoutcomes. As noted, both countries promote homeownership, but with differ-ent tools. The United States provides market-based incentives for home-ownership through the tax code and mortgage programs to promote efficientprovision of housing through private markets. However, most of the subsidiesfor those who cannot afford decent housing in the private market are targetedto rental housing.

In contrast, subsidized housing in Spain has been targeted to homeownersmore than to tenants. This contributes to the high level of homeownership inSpain. In addition, housing represents more than three-fourths of the personalwealth of homeowners in Spain, but only 47% of the personal wealth of home-owners in the United States (Spanish Bank Annual Report, 2003). Although the


United States is often referred to as a nation of homeowners, homeownershipis much more dominant in Spain. (The latest legislative reforms in Spain aretrying to provide more emphasis on rented housing but ownership remains thedominant choice of consumers.)

Due to rapid increases in housing prices relative to incomes, housing policyin both countries has shifted its emphasis to enabling private markets to pro-vide affordable housing for ill-housed groups (“collectives”), of which seniorsconstitute a primary collective. In July 2005, the Spanish government ap-proved the 2005-2008 Housing Project to develop a number of economic mea-sures to improve the affordability of housing for those with less economiccapacity as well as those with specific needs (such as young people or agedones). The Spanish Housing Project integrates an important number of eco-nomic measures. These include the introduction of a housing scheme foryoung people; the promotion of property rental; special attention paid to thosegroups who most need housing; preferred protection for the disabled and theirfamilies; renovation of run-down areas in historical town centers; and promo-tion of the quality and sustainability of the property.

Through these measures, the Spanish Housing Project tries to improvehousing affordability for the young, disabled, and aged, and those with insuffi-cient economic capacity to access the private housing market. Of course thisorientation must bear in mind the role of the Autonomous Communities indeveloping urbanism and housing plans. Although Article 139 of the SpanishConstitution declares: “All Spaniards have the same rights and obligations inany part of the State territory,” each Autonomous Community can decide theexact scope of benefits to provide seniors, the best locations for elderly hous-ing, and the types of housing developments that would be best for the elderly.In both Spain and the United States, the national governments can set goalsand provide incentives, but the power to implement urbanism and housing pol-icies is vested heavily in regional governments (Autonomous Communitiesand states, respectively) (Gómez Jiménez, 2002).

The Importance of Services in the Provision of Housing

In Spain and America housing policies addressing elderly housing needsrecognize that shelter has to be bundled with services. This is accomplishedbest when housing and urbanism policies are coordinated–good housingpolicy is only possible in conjunction with good urban policy. Unfortunatelyin both countries housing and urbanism are treated as if they were isolatedpolicies. This diminishes the ability to bundle shelter and services in theimplementation of housing policy.


However, plan making is always present in the Spanish laws, which distin-guish between plans and the utilization of different tools (or projects) to imple-ment those plans. Plan making in Spain is reflected in the original competencethe State holds to plan the general economy (Article 131 CE) through to theunderstanding that urban plans and housing plans are essential to local gover-nance of cities and regions. In the United States, planning is often relegated alesser role in comparison to project or program administration, which dimin-ishes the capacity to coordinate and direct specific instruments of policytoward a larger end (Levy, 1997; Kaiser et al., 1995).

The lack of coordination between urbanism and housing policies happensin both countries. Decentralization of governmental powers in Spain enablesdifferent regional urbanism acts under the umbrella of the general national actthat result in a lack of coordination of urbanism and housing policies. The U.S.case is even more severe in that there is no national goal of coordinating urban-ism and housing policy. Although this coordination is central to the promotionof Smart Growth, there is no national policy on urbanism. The United Stateslacks a comprehensive understanding of what the urban process means to thecity as a whole and housing policy has to accommodate accordingly (Freeman,2003). In Spain every region has an urbanism policy established within thebroad national framework, but the lack of coordination of housing and urban-ism policies sometimes leaves the two in conflict, even if elderly housing pol-icy refers to the integration of shelter and services through targeting integratedrehabilitation areas.

The lack of coordination between housing and urbanism policies contrib-utes to the creation of ghettos through poor site selection for the elderly andother publicly assisted housing plus the lack of integration of the units in theurban framework. Julio Ponce (2004) refers to “an increasing urban segrega-tion connected with new phenomena like immigration from third worldcountries, and a legal reaction that tries to combat the urban segregation bymeans of urban tools,” addressing a public reaction similar to NIMBY (Not InMy Backyard) in the United States (Galster et al., 2003) and the resulting con-centration of poverty.

While the problem in Spain is the lack of coordination between these twopolicy spheres, the problem in the United States is that the urbanism sphere ismissing at the national level. The coordination of housing policy and urbanismpolicy is possibly an insurmountable problem in the United States. Housingpolicy has largely been the domain of the federal government, although of latethe states and localities have emerged to play more significant roles. Urbanismpolicy has been left almost entirely to localities (e.g., cities, town, counties),with a few states being notable exceptions, and is dominated by private marketland development. Consequently, housing and urbanism policies are seldom


integrated effectively in the United States. Additionally, while a wide range ofhousing programs exist in the United States, they often exist separately fromoverarching policies that treat these programs as tools to implement policy. Asa result, housing planning is all too frequently a loose menu of programs ratherthan a clear design for policy implementation.

THE ROLE OF SENIORS IN THE HOUSING POLICY

Defining Seniors

Both Spain and the United States have populations that are aging. Thebaby-boom generations in both countries will start to become seniors betweenthe years 2010 and 2020. By year 2050 one of three Spanish will be a senior.That means a quick increase in the demand of services to cover the needs ofthis population. In similar terms, in the United States, the population above theage of 65 is increasing rapidly as a result of the baby-boom generation (Koebeland Webber, 2001; Gimmy and Boehm, 1988).

There is a general consensus in Spain to define “senior” as a person above65 years old. Similarly in the Unites States, seniors are defined as personsabove age 62 or older for Section 202 housing (Jacobs, 1996) or 55 years andolder in the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC). The Fair Housing Actalso uses 55 and older to identify age-restricted senior housing, which hasbecome the rule in privately provided senior housing.

Even without a specific definition of the elderly in the legislative system,we can find specific references to the collective such as in the 2005-2008Spanish Housing Project. Also, in the administrative decentralization whichcharacterizes Spain as a Decentralized State, the reproduction of a legislativebranch in each Autonomous Community has made it possible to manage adiversity of legislation regarding seniors, so the benefits one can gain on beingolder depends on the Autonomous Community one might live in.

Seniors, the Handicapped, and the Suppressionof Architectural Barriers

Seniors and the handicapped are often considered as a single collective. Inpart, this reflects the impact of aging on physical abilities. Given the overlapbetween these populations, it is useful to discuss the Spanish policy onDisabilities, and Spanish policy on social services regarding the role of elderpeople and their need of long-term care.


In Spain, the identification of collectives such as the elderly and handicappedinside the Social Services system enables the Public Powers to be responsiblefor offering support to improve the quality of life of these persons as an impor-tant part of the “four branch” of the Welfare State (recognized specifically inthe Spanish White Paper on Dependency, Libro Blanco de la Dependencia enEspaña). These policies reflect an important social protection for the collectiveof the elderly and handicapped throughout the public initiatives authorized un-der the Governing the Economy and Social Policy Principles, which reflectsthe recognition of this collective in the Spanish Constitution. Article 49 of theSpanish Constitution establishes the handicapped as a collective:

The public authorities shall carry out a policy of preventive care, treat-ment, rehabilitation and integration of the physically, sensorial and men-tally handicapped by giving them the specialized care they require, andaffording them special protection for the enjoyment of the rights grantedby this Part to all citizens.

Article 50 declares the elderly as a collective:

The public authorities shall guarantee, through adequate and periodi-cally updated pensions, a sufficient income for citizens in old age. Like-wise, and without prejudice to the obligations of the families, they shallpromote their welfare through a system of social services that providesfor their specific problems of health housing culture and leisure.

The importance of referring to both the elderly and handicapped when study-ing housing policy and laws pertaining to seniors has to do with the similaritiesboth collectives may share. When one becomes older, deficiencies appear af-fecting your activities of daily living. The Spanish Disability Act and the Na-tional Plan for Accessibility 2004-2012 refer not just to the handicappedphysically but to the elderly. The National Plan for Accessibility 2004-2010promotes the removal of architectural barriers in public and private housing de-sign, and in public buildings. This goal has been to develop competences inhousing for people with disabilities by the national government and the Autono-mous Communities, which are allowed to develop their own policies on aging inplace and adapting existing buildings to the new needs of seniors (GómezJiménez, 2000). In addition, the White Paper about Dependency on Spain, pre-pared as a document to diagnose the situation of dependency and to improve theautonomy of those who need the permanent aid of others to develop an autono-mous life, includes dependency related to either physical handicaps or age.


The United States has also developed programs to provide housing for theelderly and handicapped. These include special provisions for the elderly andhandicapped in the Public Housing and Section 8 Housing programs, the Sec-tion 202 loan program for housing for the elderly and handicapped, the Sec-tion 811 loan program for housing for the handicapped, and the HousingOpportunities for Persons with Aids (HOPWA) program. While many elderlypeople are disabled, including a range of disabling conditions in a single col-lective can lead to problems. Definitions of “handicap” or “disability” in theU.S. housing policy have been expanded to include persons recovering fromdrug dependency. Since several programs refer to the elderly and handicappedas a single collective, the expansion of that collective to include recoveringdrug addicts resulted in housing the latter with seniors in some buildings.

Addressing the Housing Needs of Seniors

Aging well implies understand aging as a social and emotional maturation(Vaillant, 2002). Lifestyles choices along with genetics, wealth, race and otherfactors help determine how happy people are in their later life. Housing policycan contribute to lifestyles that enhance quality of life as we age (Scott-Webber and Koebel, 2001). The Spanish Articles 47 and 50 seem to imply arange of public responsibilities in promoting the quality of life of the elderly.The existence of social benefits allows an important number of pensioners tolive independently due to the benefits they receive at retirement age.

Social Security systems in both countries clearly have contributed to an im-proved quality of life for the elderly. However, the existence of a developedSocial Security system in Spain has created a public perception that no morepublic action is needed despite the increasing number of elder people.

Although significant public resources are applied to cover the expenses ofthe health and labor social system, the needs of the elderly are not as well ad-dressed in Spain’s housing programs. Nevertheless the 2005-2008 SpanishHousing Project recognizes specifically the importance of including the col-lective of the elderly in financial aid at a State Level, enabling the elderly asone of the possible applicants for financial support to adapt their houses byrehabilitation, or for getting some support as a renter. Spain also recently ap-proved a Dependency Act (published in the Congress Bulletin on October 5,2006), which will establish new public retirement projects and a general sys-tem for all people who need some financial support to allow aging in place fortheir elderly relatives who do not want to leave their homes.

The Spanish Autonomous Communities have their own laws regarding se-niors, sometimes as part of the social services law and some AutonomousCommunities have their own seniors’ affairs acts. The existence of different


plans in the Autonomous Communities to attend the same phenomenon com-plicates any study of elderly housing policies, a situation similar to the diver-sity of policies set by States in the United States.

In the United States, nonprofit housing organizations (or NGOs) comple-ment government action in helping to meet the housing needs of the elderly.The Section 202 loan program primarily assists NGOs in the financing ofapartments for the elderly, which usually include some provision for collec-tive meals and other assistive services. National and local NGOs are activethroughout the United States in developing and operating housing for theelderly (Koebel, 1998). By comparison, the provision of elderly housingservices by NGOs is a relatively underdeveloped activity in Spain.

For the most part, the preference of the Spanish elderly is to age in place.Fortunately in the Spanish social structure and culture, relatives remain themain caregivers of their loved ones. As a result, Spanish laws and housing pol-icies stress the adaptation of housing more than the construction of new unitsor types of retirements projects. It is important to note that nearly all seniors inSpain live in owner-occupied housing, whereas in the United States a signifi-cant proportion of seniors are renters (Pastalan, 1989, 1990). When rental ten-ancy exits for Spanish seniors, it often represents well-known cases of elderlyliving in old buildings subject to rent control in the inner cities under theUrban Rent Act of 1964. But these buildings are in deplorable condition andthe land on which the building is located has greater value than the buildingitself, and so there is speculative pressure to obtain the land for new urbandevelopments.

Some Conclusions on Spanish Housing Policiesfor the Elderly and Handicapped

A distinction is required between the elderly needing care because of physi-cal dependency and the elderly who can live independently, albeit with some as-sistance. Housing policy has to address a continuum of housing needs amongseniors for independent living, assisted living (e.g., congregate care), andlong-term care (e.g., nursing homes). Given the rapid progression of public as-sistance required as seniors advance from independent living to nursing homesand the preference of seniors for independent living, housing policies shouldenable seniors to live independently and only advance to higher levels ofcare when clearly needed. Since most Spanish seniors live in owner-occupiedhousing, very often with their children or other relatives, physical modificationsand social services to allow easier aging in place should be a priority.

All the Autonomous Communities have approved regulations determiningthe minimum conditions housing should have regarding the different needs it


must attend. The implementation of this provision involves specific measuresestablishing minimum requirements for housing maintenance and for the loca-tion of houses for the elderly. For instance, the Canaria 3/96 Act requires(Article 18) that housing for the elderly should be placed as close as possible tothe areas of major socioeconomic activities, and close to the general healthServices (hospital and similarities). The desired locations for elderly housingare more clearly addressed in Spain than in the United States, where site selec-tion is driven more by the availability and cost of land, zoning controls, andacceptance by other property owners in the neighborhood (reflective of the“Not In My Backyard” or NIMBY reaction).

The idea of integration of housing and urbanism is present in legislationenacted by almost all of the Autonomous Communities. For instance in theRegion of Murcia the Plan for Seniors, 2003-2007 (“Plan de Acción para laspersonas mayores de la region de Murcia”) points to the need to adapt build-ings and their environment, and to provide accessible transport for seniorswho have some kind of disability. This integration of housing and urbanismpolicies is less clearly advanced in the United States.

Policies promoting aging in place are encouraged in all the AutonomousCommunities. Spaniards feel a strong sense of belonging to one place and pub-lic measures provide support for adapting houses for an elderly occupant. Thesemeasures are not restricted to the low-income seniors, but also those with me-dium incomes as aging in place is considered as a universal need. Toward thissame end, the Condominium Act of 1960 was reformed in 1998 to allow themodification of some common elements in buildings to adapt them to personswith disabilities. Although aging in place is very frequent in the United States,popular preferences among both seniors and their adult progeny promote greaterisolation of seniors from other family members. This often puts seniors at in-creased risk of inadequate social support to maintain independency as they de-velop more limitations in daily activities.

When seniors need some form of long-term care, government should pro-mote the construction of assisting living facilities by giving financial supportand establishing guidelines for adapting the existing stock of housing to in-clude long-term care (in the United States see Marsden, 2001; Zimmerman,2001; Frank, 2002; United States Senate, 2001, and United States House ofRepresentatives, 2003). The directions contained in the Catalonia Plan for theElderly with Dependency serve to illustrate the Spanish approach. This planrecommends:

• A care model based on the user directed to achieving the real integrationof all the services around the needs and preferences of the user.


• A very flexible model of care designed and adapted to the needs of the in-dividuals and their surroundings, and supplying a varied combination ofservices and resources.

• Enhancing the value of paid caregivers by providing training and profes-sional status to all the work force involved in the care of the dependentelderly.

• Supporting adaptive redesign, including the transformation of resi-dences into platforms of integrated services, in which institutionalizedcare becomes just one more element in a broad portfolio of services withthe capacity to care for dependence in a global way.

• Financing dependent care in a mixed public-private model in order to beable to attend to all dependent people with a minimum level of guaran-teed care and the rest of the services for dependent care financed whollyor partially through a system of progressive co-payment, according tothe social and financial situation of the user.

CONCLUSION

The American trend toward greater social and physical isolation of seniorsfrom younger family members is a reflection of advanced modernity. Al-though modified within the Spanish context, the forces of modernity will pushSpain toward similar challenges, which in turn will require a greater relianceon public policies to assure sufficient housing quality for seniors. These chal-lenges and the requirements for public responses are escalating geometrically.Spain needs to increase its response to senior housing needs, including inde-pendent living and assisted living opportunities, before it faces a more seriouschallenge, one of crisis proportions. But policies need to also promote the con-tinuation of Spanish cultural norms of family care-giving and responsibilityfor the elderly.

More than the 78% of Spanish seniors prefer to remain at home in case ofdependency and to live in their own property till the end of their days, perhapshelped by some assisted facility or caregiver in addition to relatives (see thereport “Where and how seniors prefer to live in Spain, current and futuretrends” published in December 2005, by the Age and Life Institute in collabo-ration with the Barcelona Autonomous University and the Catalonia Polytech-nic University). These are sobering trends that emphasize the urgency andimportance of improving Spanish housing policy for independent living units,assisting living facilities, congregate housing, and nursing care.


As the first step toward implementing the new Dependency Act, the SpanishWhite Paper on Dependency helps assure that housing policies affecting theelderly will take into account their own point of views by integrating represen-tatives of some elderly organizations in the previous work. Spanish housingpolicy for the elderly must reflect the Spanish social structure which empha-sizes the role of relatives as superior to professional caregivers. Spanishhousing policy has to create the proper framework in which new housing ac-tivities can be integrated. This requires attention to the location of new retire-ment projects, alternative measures to supply adequate long-term care, and thewishes of those who want to remain in their own houses.

Opportunities are needed to debate the proper integration of elderly pro-jects into housing policies by creating a Sectorial Conference devoted to thesubject, with the coordination of all the Autonomous Communities. Otherwisethe approach of digital cities (Gómez Jiménez, 2004 and Chaparro, 2003) couldresult in new urban patterns that do not accommodate the increasing elderlypopulation that will be living in cities.

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doi:10.1300/J081v20n04_03


A comparison of Spanish and American Housing Policy Frameworks Addresing Housing for the Elderly

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