Housing for the Elderly - Are Older Adults a New Vulnerable Group?

Growing housing costs have been recorded in the Czech Republic over the last decade. The fact would not present a problem if household incomes grew in the same rate. However, as our outcomes show, the number of households where the share of expenditures on housing exceeds 30% or even 40% of their disposable incomes has grown. We can also interpret this fact from the increases of expenditures on social benefits provided to these households in the Czech Republic with the aim to support them in covering excessive housing expenditure (CZK 12 billion in 2014). The paper focuses on a specific group of elderly households. We would like to find an answer to the question what the extent to which these households have become a new vulnerable group is. On the basis of the EU-SILC data we have identified that the housing expenditures of 31% of these households (2014) exceed 30% of their disposable incomes; their number grew by more than 50% in the studied period 2005-2014. The non-take-up analysis also showed that up to 90% of the households entitled to the housing allowance did not apply for this benefit in 2013.