Home for the old

HUGH FAULKNER. the Director of Help the Aged, writing on page 5, calls on the Christian community to do more to improve the lot of the elderly in society. One priority area, he claims, must surely be in the field of housing and must include the building of more sheltered housing.
Mr Faulkner would surely approve. therefore, of the latest venture undertaken by Servite Houses, the charitable housing association, in Bognor Regis, Sussex. Last Tuesday it opened a new scheme consisting of 34 sheltered housing flats for the elderly and 57 lamily houses.
One interesting feature of the project is the decision to convert two of the family houses into a home for the mentally handicapped under the supervision of LArche, which has won an international reputation for its work in this field.
A prime aim of the design of the new flats is to create conditions which enable elderly people to five with the maximum amount of' independence but to have at the same time easy access to help in any emergency.
The flats are grouped together, but each couple who live there are able to look after themselves without interference. Each one is linked to the warden, whom they can contact immediately if some crisis should arise.
In addition. a common room and a launderette are on the site. As Mr Forbes Melville, head of the administration of Servitc -Houses explained: "Part of the idea is that many old people are lonely and by providing these facilities we hope to help create a real community."
Servite Houses were keen to avoid the danger of isolating old people into a kind of "ghetto" of their own: hence the plan to house families around the close.
This helps to ensure that all the residents feel they are living in what is basically an ordinary community. with a mixed group of people facing very normal problems.
The Bognor Regis scheme is the start of a new departure by the association which it hopes to imitate elsewhere, namely the cooperation with L'Arche.
Such an approach has many advantages. For example, at Bognor Regis, one of the elderly people is an excellent artist and he is now involved in teaching his skills to a mentally handicapped girl.
At the opening Mgr Arthur lggleden, Vicar General of the diocese of Arundel and Brighton and a member of the diocesan ecumenical commission, said he was particularly delighted to see that the mixed tenants were completely inter denominational.
In fact Servite Houses are not only "interdenominational"; they cater for all people who need housing, whether they are Christians or not — a point which Mr Melville said was often overlooked and which needed stressing.