How Size Matters
There are four different levels addressed by thinking about how size matters: the size of each individual dwelling, the size of the almshouse as a whole (how many individual flats or houses there are on one site), the size of the local neighbourhood, and then the size of the town or city. These will vary with each almshouse: some may be very rural, where the neighbourhood is a village; other almshouses are larger, although few have over 50 homes in one location. What we are looking at in this theme is what can be learnt about the importance of scale and the size of places, when it comes to thinking more widely about resilience.
In recent years we have been encouraged to think about ‘downsizing’ as we get older. This could mean moving from a family home to a flat. Almshouses provide an opportunity for people to do this, and the term that describes this more accurately is ‘right-sizing’ – living in a place that suits your needs, which are likely to change as you age. During the interviews and focus group discussions residents talked about the two ends of scale: the advantages of living in a more compact home with shared communal space (see also Design and Shared Space) and the disadvantages it can bring, especially compared to where they have moved from.
“It’s much smaller than what I’m used to. … I’ve got grandkids and great-grandkids, and when they come around, it is a bit small-ish, but they’re only here for a couple of hours … And it’s plenty big enough for me”
(Resident 12)
For some residents moving released them from the worry of managing and maintaining a larger home, which they were finding harder to do as they got older (this is also discussed in the theme Maintenance and Opportunity). Not being able to maintain a large garden or negotiate stairs were aspects of their former home they found difficult to manage with age:
“ … not having to deal with the stairs, having a smaller place in terms of keeping it clean and managing it is a plus”
(Resident 47).
Smaller scale dwellings can be liberating for some, but for others having less space to store belongings or day-to-day items such as a vacuum cleaner was more of a problem and something they had to adjust to (see also Architecture and Adaptation).
Quiet rural sites and the urban city scale offer varied opportunities to build community relationships. Feelings of isolation do not necessarily come with rural living – networks of support can be built at various scales. The size of an almshouse community can impact on how that community works in terms of helping each other. The example was given by staff that with five or six cottages people will help each other but with 50-60 cottages it is more possible to avoid other people. Our research took us to a range of sites: rural, urban, towns and villages. Different scales of locality have an impact on residents’ ability to connect to each other, and to the wider community. This was especially evident where towns and villages had changed in scale, where populations had decreased, impacting on local amenities or where populations had increased, changing local networks and services (see People-place Connections). Proximity to others, including having a visual connection, was important to some, although small scale does not necessarily mean you are in touch with people more, and large scale does not mean you are not connected with neighbours. In this case the resident thought that the size of where they lived was an important factor:
“it’s such a small estate that if [a friend] was in her garden, and we were in ours, we could shout to each other across the road … you still had some social interaction with people”
(Resident 31).
The size of charity can mean that they can help other charities, for example large charities helping smaller charities, or smaller charities combining to address shared issues together, such as sharing support workers for example. Larger charities have the opportunity to take advantage of economies of scale, buying fuel in bulk for example or investing in digital provision across a site. This might make more sense for larger charities than it does for smaller ones. There is no one perfect size or solution, and scale and ‘right size’ depends on individuals and each individual charity. Living where you know and being close to networks of support is important. When charities expand or develop new housing, this can mean displacing existing residents, which can impact those networks (see also People-place Connections). One of the benefits of living in an almshouse can mean that you stay in your local area, connected to community and family, but as the scale of the locality changes it can be difficult to recognise or feel part of something that you have always been part of:
“They’re taking away the shops. They’re taking away local people. … I feel now it’s not my home anymore because we’re being inundated with high-rise buildings, all they seem to want to do around this part of the area is hotels and high-rise buildings”
(Resident 43)
When we talk about scale, we are mainly talking about the physical spaces around us, and when we are talking about connections to our local area, we are thinking about physical connections in terms of relationships to others and local services.
It is important to remember that there are digital connections too and in terms of accessing services, the scale of your local area may become less relevant as digital technologies are applied.
“ … people used to say, ‘Oh, moving there, there’s nothing there, there are no shops, there’s nothing.’ But in this day and age, lots of people have their iPads or whatever. You can get delivered. You don’t have to worry about a little shop, or anything like that”
(Resident 32)
The size of the population or the local community is significant as it has an impact on local provision of services and can impact travel distances, which especially affects those who are reliant on public transport. This in turn makes it harder to access amenities and services. Urban locations are more likely to have lots of smaller amenities close by. Semi-rural and suburban locations are more likely to have fewer but bigger amenities further away, such as the out-of-town shopping centre. Existing almshouses are fixed in a location, and although it is possible to develop new almshouse sites or even sell almshouses that are no longer in an appropriate location, this presents issues for the residents and the trustees. It is important to remember that different people thrive in different environments, and what for one person may be overwhelmingly busy, for another person is an atmosphere they enjoy. Noise and looking over a busy streetscape are an example of this: “ … I like noise. If I was put on the main road, I would like it. This is too quiet for me” (Resident 45). One of the key issues here is being able to exercise a degree of choice and having opportunities to make those choices (see also Residents’ Independence). Some residents felt that as the place around them had changed in terms of the scale of the community resources, this was having a detrimental impact on amenity:
“We’ve got no shops. It used to be a good shopping street but all we’ve got [now] is takeaways”
(Resident 47).
