Inclusive housing, as defined by Article L281-1 of the Social Action and Families Code, is intended for older people or people with disabilities who ‘choose to live in a communal setting, either amongst themselves or with other people’. It combines private accommodation with shared spaces, organised around a ‘social and shared living project’. Its residents are eligible for the Shared Living Grant (AVP), which funds the activities set out in this project. To inform current public policy aimed at encouraging the development of ‘intermediate housing’, the IPP has carried out the first national survey of project leaders running housing schemes whose residents benefit from the AVP.
The survey shows that these facilities share certain characteristics with the medical-social sector: project organisers often come from this sector, and the profiles of residents are similar to those in certain medical-social care homes. However, they differ in other respects, notably in that they are smaller in scale and, on average, have a younger resident population in inclusive housing for older people than in independent living schemes. The ‘social and shared living’ model, which introduces a participatory dimension into their operation, is another distinctive feature.
Finally, inclusive housing schemes are often set up on the initiative of local authorities, with the support of social housing providers. They thus constitute an original public policy, at the crossroads between policies on independent living and housing policy.
