Adaptation: Altering the House to Restore the Home

A research project into the effectiveness of housing adaptations found some high levels of satisfaction but also examples where considerable expenditure had produced ineffective or even harmful outcomes. An analysis of the ethnographic material suggested that failure to take into account the meaning of home to those receiving adaptations was a cause of wasted expenditure. Alterations to the home that produced an unacceptable image of self that did not restore privacy and a sense of primal security, nor respect the respondent's control within their home, all produced unsatisfactory results. There was also evidence that disregard of home as a base for relationships and for childhood and a lack of understanding of the nodal nature of home and the importance of rootedness all had consequences in determining whether investment was efficient. This study lends weight to the case for including ‘meaning of home’ factors routinely in housing research.