Those who have to live on a small pension often have a very difficult time paying their rent. ‘This is simply not feasible without government funding.’
‘Man 81 j is looking for a woman of about the same age to rent a house together. It’s just too expensive. ‘
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‘Man 81 j is looking for a woman of about the same age to rent a house together. It’s just too expensive. ‘ The author of that advertisement, which appeared some time ago in Het Belang van Limburg, is not the only one with that problem. This is the result of a new study by Pascal De Decker and Emma Volckaert of the Planning for People, Urbanity & Landscape (P.PUL) research group at KU Leuven. In their book Oud, poor en Huurder, they sketch the tricky living conditions of private and social tenants with a limited budget in Ghent. ‘The private housing market in particular is an absolute disaster when you are old,’ says sociologist Pascal De Decker. To begin with, this is due to the high rents, which continue to rise. Many older tenants do not have enough of their pension to pay the rent, so they have to look for other income. ‘In the first instance, people then use their savings,’ says researcher Emma Volckaert. ‘But many of our respondents have no savings to fall back on and therefore have to get the rent elsewhere. Sometimes there is a family member who is willing to assist, but that is rather exceptional. ‘ The result is that many tenants are forced to do extra jobs after their retirement. At first glance, this usually involves voluntary work, such as caring for other elderly people or supervision in after-school childcare, but often the compensation they receive for this turns out to be essential. ‘Such a volunteer’s allowance is no more than a few euros per hour, but on a monthly basis that can still yield 80 to 150 euros extra. For people who are very short on cash, such an amount makes a huge difference to be able to make it to the end of the month, ‘says Volckaert. Older tenants sometimes also look for ways to reduce the rent. “They don’t always use legal methods to do this, but in some cases it is clearly a survival strategy,” says De Decker. For example, the researchers spoke to a 67-year-old tenant who receives 200 euros from her son every month. In exchange, he may be registered at her address so that his girlfriend, with whom he lives, does not lose her financial benefits as a widow. ‘Without that contribution from her son, that woman would be in serious trouble,’ says Volckaert. “Not only because she can’t pay the rent on her own, but also because owners would refuse her because of her low income.” The energy bill is also a cause for concern for many elderly people. It is striking that some pay their energy supplier too large an advance each month for safety reasons. ‘They regard this as a kind of savings system,’ explains Volckaert. ‘Many of those people are very afraid that they will receive an invoice for which they do not have the money. So they prefer to pay too much so that they get money back afterwards. That almost feels like a gift – which of course it isn’t. ‘ As people get older and less mobile, they can no longer live anywhere. Then they often need an adapted house or apartment without stairs, with an age-proof bathroom and with doors that are wide enough to pass through with a walker or wheelchair. However, previous research has shown that no fewer than 86 percent of Flemish homes are not properly adapted to this at all, and as a tenant you naturally do not have the option to renovate your house or flat. ‘The vast majority of our respondents live in an apartment building with a lift, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have to climb stairs,’ says Volckaert. ‘For starters, you usually have to climb a flight of stairs to get to the front door or the elevator. And if the lift is easily accessible, it often does not work properly or is too small for a walker or wheelchair. ‘ Pascal De Decker has been advocating for some time to impose building standards so that new-build homes must systematically meet the needs of people who are less mobile. ‘That will include the width of the doors, the height of the sockets and the turning circle in the toilet and bathroom,’ he says. ‘More than 200,000 apartments have been built in Flanders over the past fifteen years. If builders had already imposed such basic rules then, we would now have 200,000 adapted homes, and thousands of people would have been able to live independently for much longer. But the government, which has not at all anticipated the aging of the population in its housing policy, has missed that opportunity and there is no indication that this will change in the near future. ‘ The place where such a rental home is located is also crucial as you get older. Almost one in five older tenants in the survey has too few amenities in their neighborhood, such as a grocery store, a post office, a bank, a butcher shop and a bakery. ‘It is striking that things are not always better in the city,’ says Emma Volckaert. ‘I spoke to people who had moved to the center of Ghent, but soon realized that they were just worse off there: the luxury bakeries and butchers are too expensive for them and there are no affordable supermarkets within walking distance.’ Anyone who rents an unadapted home on the private housing market that is also in the wrong place, should therefore move on time. However, the search for a new rental home is anything but easy for retired tenants. Previous research has shown that many landlords prefer younger families and those with a higher income. Tenants themselves often have the impression that landlords prefer to see them leave as soon as they retire. ‘That is why we argue in favor of making all leases automatically of unlimited duration once tenants are retired,’ says De Decker. ‘Although that does not solve everything, it is actually almost impossible to rent on the private market if you have to live on a low pension. Renting is usually only possible with an allowance from the government. The system of housing subsidies for vulnerable tenants should be expanded considerably. Moreover, these subsidies should be paid automatically, because many people do not even know they exist or lack the social skills to claim them. ‘ Then apply for social housing? That is not always an option either. Not only is there a long waiting list, many older tenants do not want this because of the stigma attached to social housing. ‘That is why it is a very bad idea, as is happening now, to hang a sign on such a building so that everyone can see that it concerns social housing,’ says De Decker. ‘Social housing companies would much better rent or buy a number of flats in an ordinary apartment building. In addition, they must also stop building those recognizable neighborhoods with identical houses, because many people do not want to live there either. However, poor, older tenants are much better off in social housing than in the private rental market. ‘
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