Giving social housing tenants a voice
Last month, a roundtable of senior figures in the housing sector met to discuss the possibility of setting up a new independent tenant body. This organisation would “be led by social housing tenants to drive engagement with residents and represent their views to the government, landlords and other stakeholders.”
My own view is that this is a move which is long overdue: there are over four million social housing tenants in the UK and far too often they lack the opportunities, avenues and ability to have a real impact on the services they receive. This is both regrettable and also perplexing. Social housing tenants are the customers of their landlords who surely should have at the very least the same voice as you would expect other consumers to have in other sectors: In fact there is an obvious argument they deserve even more of a say given housing is a basic human need that is so crucial to everyone’s daily life.
A key factor that I believe holds back many landlords from having a successful, vibrant relationship with their tenants is fear. Engaging with residents properly and bringing them inside decision making processes can result in difficult conversations, and if done badly, consume a great deal of time and resources. One senior politician at a local authority told me once that a key problem was that landlords often simply didn’t know where to start when it came to setting up genuinely successful resident engagement structures or processes that empowered their tenants.
As I have written before, these concerns are understandable, but they can, with the right attitude and know how, be overcome - in fact, they must be overcome!
At Just Housing Group, we have worked with a variety of partners and their tenants (as well as leaseholders) on bespoke plans that have been focused on bringing tenants into the centre of decision making. This has included an innovative project in Barking Riverside to establish a self-governing body for one of London’s biggest new housing developments, delivered by the Greater London Authority, L&Q housing association and the local council (Barking and Dagenham). Outside of London, our team is working with three leading housing associations to develop an exciting road map to decarbonise a collective housing stock of more than 20,000 homes, with tenants playing a key role in shaping the priorities of the project. You can read more about both examples, and others, at our case study hub here.
Ultimately, there is no one “route map” to successful tenant empowerment: it must be bespoke to the situation, and have the buy in of both the landlord and tenants. Most importantly, it has to be achievable and practical, with clear aims and reasonable, cost effective objectives. Do get in touch with Just Housing Group if you want to chat through how we have helped landlords and tenants build, implement and deliver a better relationship.