The notion of intergenerationality is an objective that is stressed in all of the public policies and in order to address this issue in terms of housing means that it is necessary to envisage several working and territorial hypotheses.
It is not just a question of constructing a structured framework that allows for the multiplication of this type of housing, since there is also a need to evaluate both the number and the quality of the services provided. The aim is to use housing in order to match the mutual interests of two generations, young people and the elderly who, often for different reasons, share the same housing-related difficulties.
The example provided by the city of Alicante (Spain) may serve as the basis for this work. In order to rehabilitate derelict housing areas in the run-down city centre it has entrusted its housing body with the task of establishing buildings for mixed occupation (under certain conditions and subject to the availability of resources). Young people sign a contract under which they pay a reduced rent in return for the provision of services to the elderly living in the same building and in the neighbourhood.
In order to anticipate the new ways of life and to ensure their acceptance, there is a need to allow the different generations to compare and to contrast their ideas within consultation and dialogue bodies that already exist but which often work in isolation. Although the representatives of public opinion have noted the sincere and active commitment of young people for major causes within the limitations of the space that is provided to them, there is a deficit in their commitment towards community-based solidarity.
