Re-Locating to Intermediate Housing + Old Age Care Structures in Italy

Abstract

In a context of huge and fast-ageing population, in Italy and in particular in Lombardy, policy makers are trying to enlarge “housing plus care” alternatives to which elderly people can turn to before being in need of complex care and eventually moving to a nursing home, in a country were caring needs are normally coped with through informal assistance given at home by family members and, increasingly, by migrant personal assistants. The article discusses the rationale of re-locating in old age to these “light” residential solutions and presents the findings of 101 face-to-face interviews with elderly persons who already moved into them in Lombardy. The main research question addressed here is to what extent people feel “in place” in these new habitats, and which are the aspects that enrich lives in old age in these new settings.