A government taskforce is looking at ways to expand the senior living sector to help solve the UK’s social care problem and ease the country’s housing crisis.

The Older People’s Housing Taskforce, which was created earlier this year, is looking at ways to facilitate the creation of more housing specifically targeted at senior citizens and put housing at the centre of the conversation about care for older people.

“We need to put housing into the conversation when it comes to health, and so far it’s not an issue that’s been on the table,” Older People’s Housing Taskforce Chair Julienne Meyer told Bisnow. Meyer is also a professor emerita of nursing specialising in care for older people at City, University of London.

“We want to widen the options available for older people, and incentivise people to rightsize and release family homes for others.”

A call for evidence is open until 18 September, seeking submissions that would provide solutions to current challenges faced by older people when it comes to housing.

Meyer said she wants the real estate industry to come up with evidence-based solutions on how to expand the supply of senior housing. You can respond to the submission here.

The taskforce is bringing together the Department of Health and the Department of Levelling Up,  Housing and Communities for the first time, in an effort to create integrated solutions to the problem of funding the care for older people in the UK, Meyer said.

The UK, like many countries around the world, is facing a demographic challenge: The population is getting older, with growing numbers of people requiring housing for longer as well as extra care in later years for conditions such as dementia.

While the need for extra funding has grown, budgets for social care at government and local authority levels have been frozen or cut.

The growing need for senior living housing creates an opportunity for the UK real estate sector. But so far, the country lags behind nations like the U.S., Australia and New Zealand when it comes to providing such housing, Meyer said.

There needs to be a greater focus on the “middle bracket” she added. The best off in society can afford high-end facilities, and to some degree the lowest earners are catered for via the social housing sector. But those who might have retired owning a home but with little other savings, or who might rent and have a small pension, are not being catered for by the current system, she said.

Meyer is a keynote speaker at Bisnow’s UK Later Living event on 19 September. To attend, sign up here.