For the “baby boomer” generation, who will be retiring in the next few years, there is already a lack of age-appropriate apartments. And in the future, fewer and fewer seniors will be able to afford to have their own four walls converted so that they can still use a walker or wheelchair. There is a threat of a “gray housing shortage,” warns the head of the Pestel Institute, Matthias Günther. According to a study carried out by the institute on behalf of the Federal Association of German Building Materials Specialists (BDB), nationwide there is already a shortage of 2.2 million senior-friendly apartments.
Even if Munich is not aging as quickly as some structurally weak rural regions due to the influx of younger people, Günther expects that the retired population in the state capital will increase by a good 58,000 to 306,700 people by 2050. Among them would be 59,000 people in need of care (2022: 38,000), 14,800 (2022: 8600) would have to be cared for in a nursing home according to the forecast. The number of senior-friendly apartments needed in Munich would rise from 42,000 to 51,000.
However, “we are ill-prepared for the baby boomers reaching an older age,” emphasized Günther when presenting the study at the Bau 2023 trade fair. The only age group that is sure to grow is the retired population. So far, only just under 17 percent of the buildings are barrier-free across Germany, and more than 80 percent of the houses have thresholds and steps. In addition, the bathrooms are often not large enough, there is usually no ground-level access to the shower, which means that the conditions for outpatient care in your own four walls are difficult.
More than half of senior households have a net income of less than 2000 euros per month, and both owners and tenants are then threatened with modernization costs that they can hardly bear. This could lead to low-income households in particular having to move to a nursing home because outpatient care is not possible at home. “Care and care in your own four walls is significantly cheaper than in a nursing home,” said BDB General Manager Michael Hölker. Günther predicted that the increase in people receiving basic security benefits in old age, as has been clearly evident in Munich for years, is likely to continue.
For owners of apartments and houses they use themselves, federal subsidy programs are needed for age-appropriate conversion, because the house bank will no longer grant loans to older people, said Günther. The state should also support the conversion of single-family houses into two apartments with a “Wohnen 67plus” program, of which at least one is designed for senior citizens.