Home sweet home: the foundation for good health and wellbeing
By: Co-Ownership
A home should be our sanctuary. It’s a place where we should feel safe, comfortable, and secure. We all intuitively understand the link it has with our health and wellbeing. Yet for many people, the place they live is a cause of stress and ill health, and for others it has become very difficult to find somewhere to call home. The reasons are well understood; too few social homes, an expensive and insecure private rented sector. Home ownership is becoming a distant dream for many due to high prices and the increasing costs of mortgages. Ultimately this has a negative impact on the economy and creates unnecessary pressures and additional costs on our health and social care system. Prevention is always cheaper than cure.
Owning a home remains an aspiration for many people and at Co-Ownership it is our purpose to enable people to become homeowners. Over the last 45 years we have helped over 32,000 people to find a safe, secure and affordable home. Our Social Impact Report is a detailed research piece we commissioned to examine our impact on customers’ finances, and physical and mental wellbeing. Our most recent report, released earlier this summer, outlines that home ownership has a positive impact on wellbeing. 82 per cent of customers who engaged with our survey reported improved health and wellbeing on becoming a homeowner, and whilst the reasons vary many cite financial security, being closer to family and a sense of achievement as the reasons why.
Additional findings tell us that before applying to Co-Ownership, 94 per cent of our customers were trying to become homeowners for up to five years. Often, they will be living in poor quality rented accommodation with many of the people surveyed telling us about the negative impact this had on their health and their children’s health. The stories that people tell about what it means to them to have a home makes what we do very worthwhile.
Our customers are people from all backgrounds and from right across Northern Ireland. Some of the feedback we get truly underpins what we are trying to do, for example, a mother of a young boy with autism told us she was finally able to give him the stability and routine he needed to thrive. And we often hear from co-owners who had previously been “trapped in a horrendous rental market” to quote one of those surveyed, as rising rents squeezed their ability to save for a deposit.
The basis of what we do – providing a part-own, part-rent solution to make home ownership affordable – has remained the same since we were formed in 1978. But we continue to innovate and respond to the changing needs in our society. NISRA reports that by mid-2045, one in four people will be over the age of 65. In response, we introduced Co-Own for Over 55s last year with funding from the Department for Communities. The product is designed to empower our aging population to live independently for as long as possible. As people’s life circumstances change their current homes may no longer suit their lifestyle or needs. For instance, a two-storey property may not be suitable for someone who has developed a mobility issue. Some people may feel their home requires too much maintenance or is too expensive to run, whilst others may feel they would have a better quality of life if they were to move closer to family or could avail of better transport links.
When a person continues to live in a home that has a negative impact on their health and wellbeing it can cause anxiety and stress and may mean that they can no longer live independently. People who find themselves in these circumstances, or people who are proactively planning for their later life, may want to move to somewhere more suitable but sometimes the gap between the value of their current home and their desired home is too great to meet. This is the situation our new Co-Own for Over 55s is designed to address.
Applicants to Co-Own for Over 55s can use the value from the sale of their current home, or savings, to fund their share of a new home that meets their emotional and physical needs – a new build or existing property anywhere in Northern Ireland currently up to a maximum value of £190,000.
The socio-economic benefits of home ownership are well understood by housing and health care professionals. We remain committed to helping as many people as possible to own their own home to give them the best chance possible in their lives, and to provide a foundation for lifelong health and wellbeing.