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2. WHICH MOTIVES DO SENIORS HAVE AND WHICH PRIORITIES AND CONSTRAINTS DO THEY ENCOUNTER WHEN LOOKING FOR MORE SUITABLE HOUSING FACILITIES?

The principal motive is not to adapt oneself to a model or ideal situation; rather it is to improve one's personal situation, looking for more social relationships and integration into a more social/cultural setting to avoid risk of exclusion.

The reasons could be that the family either doesn't take the responsibility of looking after the senior citizen, or that the level of interdependence between parents and children does not leave space. In some cases, the senior citizens cherish their independence and are individualists despite the inconveniences of their own circumstances. It may also be that they feel useful maintaining themselves, and they believe that they are capable of having autonomy in a living space for themselves, although this is the least usual.

The reasons could be of the following:

1. Personal loneliness for lack of family or the impossibility of being looked after by the family.
2. Deterioration of health
3. Insufficient help in the home.
4. A house with significant problems of light, dampness, central heating, lifts, local noise or vandalism, financial charges

In spite of everything, 54% of senior citizens say that they are happy in their own homes.

The order of preference is:

1. With the family.
2. Permanent public residences.
3. Permanent private residences.

In whichever of these cases, they prefer to live within the city itself, or as close as possible, where continual public transport is available, and where they can walk about the streets by themselves. Also, they prefer individual rooms so that they can arrange things according to taste, and to their own ideas.

The obstacles are:

• Scarcity of places in public residences or the high cost and inadequacy of private residences. Work is being done to improve this, but it must be said that it is possible to find situations in which:

1. the smaller residences don't guarantee the best service,
2. there could be a loss of personal identity,
3. the difficulty of living with others who are terminally ill,
4. totalitarian institutions where the senior citizens acquire submissive and passive attitudes of behaviour,
5. lack of places in specialised residences.

In Spain the political and social climate is of many supports with much experience which assumes a high level of options for senior citizens at the stage of getting old, and requiring more care.

 

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