The European Federation for Family Employment (EFFE) associated with the French Fondation du Domicile praise the proposals brought together by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) to put private homes forward within the related housing and ageing policies.
Considering that people aged 65 and over will make up for almost a quarter of the whole European population by year 2035, and those aged 80 and over should be more than doubled by 2080, it is an absolute urgency to launch an ambitious policy set able to tackle the increasing need for private care for the elderly and the dependent – and all this with considerate respect to every individual’s choice, as in-home care facilities are growingly demanded by the elderly.
In their recommendation “Economic, technologic and social evolution of advanced elderly healthcare services” the EESC claims its belief that a “reasonable and efficient” housing policy regarding healthcare amenities should be advantaged and advocated for instead of a too traditional and binary “private home – retirement home” logic. The Committee especially recommends that housing and ageing policies merge with innovative housing solutions – such as modular, collective or cross-generational housing units. These should “be granted a much focused attention as well as a dedicated European structural funds support”, the EESC said.
EFFE, a dedicated stakeholder committed to the evolution of private home care services in Europe, associated with the Fondation du Domicile, a think-tank on the latest private housing using customs in France, speak up for these recommendations.
“The most relevant solutions to tackle dependency issues are to be found precisely in private homes” Mrs Marie Béatrice LEVAUX, President of EFFE, said. “We do know that remaining at home while being taken care of is a significant asset to fighting loss of autonomy and elder people’s isolation. There is also an economic challenge as national States will not be able to sustain the cost of such an increase of retirement homes’ occupancy rate in the next decades. Precisely to formulate a response to all of these issues have we brought forward our European White Paper “Home, Family Employment and Homecare in the EU” with a broad range of political and civil society actors, which submits 10 substantiated proposals to structure home employment and tackle demographic stakes EU-wide”.
To develop this care model automatically induced to foster an ambitious private employers’ support policy, either financially supporting older employer households so that any elder can get an access to those services, creating a domestic worker status or supporting vocational training so as to secure the contractual relationship between worker and employer.
“The wish to merge ageing and in-home care treatments responds to a growing popular demand to take part both to the citizen life but also to actively contribute to one’s own ageing process. It must therefore be at the very heart of dedicated ageing policies”, Fondation du Domicile’s General Delegate Charlotte BRIERRE said. “We must take advantage of new domestic uses in order to find relevant solutions to dependency issues – be it an inclusive, cross-generational or common housing, with increasingly digitalized or A.I.-connected facilities. These are as many new caring solutions provided to the citizen we urge EU Member States to seize.”
Please click here to find EFFE’s White Paper.
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A social Europe that works for every home