Forecasts for many cities and regions in Europe predict a growing share of ‘elderly’ people in the overall population. In addition to this general ageing process, the number of very old people is of specific importance for the issue under discussion. This article looks at sheltered independent housing and living. In particular, the article presents the results of a quantitative and qualitative multidisciplinary study of those facilities in the Netherlands. The research provides insight into the effect of physical scale and group mix on the social quality of sheltered independent housing. The results are based on a desk study of 265 projects and a detailed case study of 24 projects. The quantitative desk study provides reviews related to the time and location (and vice versa) and thus develops a picture of the variation in sheltered independent housing complexes for the period 1998–2010. The findings of the qualitative section in general are that ensuring security and belonging is an important function of sheltered independent housing for residents. Regarding the dimension of physical scale, the responses regarding the desired scale are surprising, with equal support for large as well as small scale. Preferences are strongly related to the location in towns or villages, as the scale surrounding the housing. Regarding group mix, the most important finding is a limit of tolerance between groups, particularly tolerance among vital elderly people towards groups of residents with a mental disability or dementia. This limit seems to be reached much sooner than commonly thought, or deployed on the basis of idealistic motives.

中文翻译：

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评估独立住房的社会质量：规模和群体组合的挑战。

对欧洲许多城市和地区的预测表明，“老年人”在总人口中所占的比例将会增加。除了这个普遍的老龄化过程之外，对于正在讨论的问题，非常老的人数特别重要。本文着眼于庇护的独立住房和生活。特别是，本文介绍了对荷兰这些设施进行定量和定性的多学科研究的结果。这项研究提供了洞察力的规模和群体混合对庇护独立住房的社会质量的影响。结果基于对265个项目的案头研究和对24个项目的详细案例研究。定量案头研究提供了与时间和地点有关的评论（反之亦然），因此可以绘制出1998-2010年间庇护独立住房建筑群变化的图景。定性部分的调查结果总体上是，确保安全和归属是居民庇护独立住房的重要功能。关于物理规模，关于期望规模的响应是令人惊讶的，并且无论规模大小都支持相同。偏好与城镇或村庄的位置密切相关，因为住房的规模很大。关于群体混合，最重要的发现是群体之间的容忍度，特别是重要的老年人对智障或痴呆症患者群体的容忍度。