Sheltered housing for the elderly: too many unanswered questions

There has been an extraordinary reversal in the perceived merits of sheltered housing. Once held up as the unquestioned solution to the housing needs of elderly people, it has now fallen under a cloud which has been referred to as a 'crisis of confidence'. This paper reassesses the contribution of research to the debate. The research has almost exclusively been based on the cross-sectional descriptive survey method from which only limited conclusions can be drawn. The weaknesses of this approach are discussed and it is suggested that a different method, using longitudinal repeated contact study to evaluate narrowly focused questions, would potentially be more informative.