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Burcu BorysikThe Thinkhouse review of housing research: April
Thinkhouse editorial panel member Burcu Borysik takes a look at the best of the month’s housing research
Thinkhouse is a new website set up to be repository of housing research. Its editorial panel of economists, chief executives, consultants and academics critiques and collates the best of the most recent housing research (scroll down for more information).
Thinkhouse, a new initiative to make the best of housing research accessible for decision-makers, was formally launched at the House of Lords on 16 April.
Our editorial panel, which includes economists, chief executives, consultants and academics, selects publications solely on merit.
Each panel member has their unique criteria in assessing the research. As my expertise lies in the fields of supported housing and health, in my assessment I usually consider if the research:
- informs local authorities to develop the right range of housing to meet local needs and improve the health of local populations;
- proposes solutions to preventing homelessness and enabling people to remain in their own homes as their needs change;
- demonstrates how the housing sector can improve health equity.
This month, several pieces of research made it to my shortlist of articles to publish and review.
The first, by Sheffield Hallam University, is Better Housing, Better Health: The Lambeth Standard which provides a cost-benefit analysis for Lambeth’s housing standard.
There are numerous studies of the adverse impact on health of sub-standard housing conditions, yet there are relatively few which investigate the health gains from housing improvements. The research, carried out by the Centre for Regional Economic Research, attempts to answer this complex issue.
This is not a particularly easy task given the limited time and resources often available to researchers and the limited nature of existing evidence relating housing to health.
However, the report offers a sophisticated quantitative risk assessment model based on the Housing Health and Safety Rating System signalled by the 2004 Housing Act.
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It is important to note that Lambeth’s housing standard only covers ‘bricks and mortar’ elements of housing, not the support. Still, the analysis suggests huge social benefits: investment to raise energy efficiency levels alone produces £78m of savings as a result of reduced cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses; home adaptations £12m as a result of the reduction in trips and falls; and new windows £137m as a result of reduced demand on the NHS and criminal justice system.
Read together with the health and housing memorandum of understanding, housing practitioners could utilise this research to clarify their offer to other sectors (while I imagine the researchers in housing associations will enjoy the in-depth technical calculations in the appendices).
This month’s second publication, by the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University, explores how the housing, care and support needs of older people in Greater Cambridge can be met.
The dominant approach in estimating the demand for older people’s housing adopted by local authorities is the SHOP@ model. However, it is reported that only seven local authority areas in England have reached the prevalence rate used by the model, and only 12.5% are within 50% of the target.
“Six months after the government’s announcement for sheltered housing, now is the time for the sector to think about the range of options to fill this gap.”
The research provides a new model: it identifies 100 English local authorities with the highest supply of age-exclusive housing, specialist housing and care beds per 1,000 people aged 75 or over.
The model assumes that these areas are more likely to have achieved a better (but not perfect) balance between demand and supply. It suggests that sheltered housing is currently undersupplied to meet the demand which it represents and highlights a particular gap in the provision which is a step below extra-care in terms of the care and support offered.
Six months after the government’s announcement on sheltered housing, now is the time for the sector to think about the range of options to fill this gap.
As the research suggests, this could include streamlining home modifications and adaptations, using assistive technologies and local authority assets to build age-tailored/age-exclusive housing.
Sitting alongside this is the new report by charity Independent Age about the barriers faced by older private renters. The challenges facing older private renters are not dissimilar to the wider population. However, older people experience additional disadvantages as a result of insecurity of tenure, unaffordability and poor conditions.
“The most alarming statistic perhaps is the prevalence of loneliness among older private renters.”
The report shows that older private renters have challenges in getting adaptations to their rental properties or finding properties near specific social care services, and unsurprisingly are more likely to be affected by chronic illness and disability than owner-occupiers.
The most alarming statistic perhaps is the prevalence of loneliness among older private renters, who are 2.5 times more likely to be lonely than homeowners, with 16% of them reporting the highest loneliness scores. Given research shows that loneliness is a comparable risk factor for early death to smoking 15 cigarettes a day, it is vital that the housing sector takes action now.
In this article, I have focused on three reports that I found most interesting, but there are also several other pieces of research on the Thinkhouse repository. Please get in touch if you would like the panel to consider your research for the next edition.
Burcu Borysik, policy manager, Revolving Doors Agency and editorial panel member, Thinkhouse
What is Thinkhouse?
Thinkhouse was formally launched in spring 2018, and aims to “provide a single location and summary of the best and most innovative research pieces, policy publications and case studies”.
It specifically looks at reports that propose ways to boost the amount and quality of housing and the economic, social and community issues of not doing this.
The Thinkhouse editorial panel highlights the ‘must-read’ reports, blogs about them and runs the annual Early Career Researcher’s Prize.
The panel includes current and former housing association chief executives, academics, lawyers, economists and consultants. It is chaired by Richard Hyde, chief executive of a business that sells construction hand tools.
Who is on the panel?
Richard Hyde | Chair of Editorial Panel, CEO of HYDE |
Gemma Duggan | Head of Compliance and Performance at Extracare |
Chris Walker | Economist |
Brendan Sarsfield | CEO, Peabody |
Mick Laverty | CEO, Extracare Charitable Trust |
Martin Wheatley | Senior Fellow, Institute for Government, |
Kerri Farnsworth | Founder & MD, Kerri Farnsworth Associates |
Suzanne Benson | Head of Real Estate for the Manchester office of Trowers. |
Burcu Borysik | Policy Manager at Revolving Doors Agency, |
Ken Gibb | Professor in housing economics at the University of Glasgow, Director of CaCHE |
Peter Williams | Departmental Fellow, Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge |
Brian Robson | Executive Director of Policy and Public Affairs at the Northern Housing Consortium |
Francesca Albanese | Head of Research and Evaluation at Crisis |
Jules Birch | Journalist and blogger |
Susan Emmett | Head of Engagement for Homes England |
Mark Farmer | Founder and CEO Cast Consultancy |
Steve Moseley | Group Director of Governance, Strategy & Communications at L&Q |
Jennifer Rolison | Head of marketing at Aquila Services Group |
Philip Brown | Professor of Housing and Communities at the University of Huddersfield |
Anya Martin | Senior researcher at the National Housing Federation |
Emily Pumford | Policy & strategy advisor, Riverside |
Anthony Breach | Analyst, Centre for Cities |
Shahina Begum | Customer Insight Office, Peabody |
Where were the research gaps in 2017?
What should have been covered in 2017 but was not? Here is what the Thinkhouse editorial panel members think:
- Gemma Duggan: Have the reports in 2017 recognised that the (degree of) shift by the government towards again accepting social housing as an important part of policy, which started after the referendum and change of PM in 2016, was energised further following the Grenfell Tower catastrophe? What scope is there, at this late stage, to promote relevant research for the Social Housing Green Paper due in early 2018?
- Suzanne Benson: Research into the direct experiences of social housing tenants and those renting from private landlords seemed to be well covered in academic circles, but did not seem to hit the mainstream media. How can the homeownership and rental tenures (both social, affordable and private rented sector) be more effectively linked together to recognise that individuals do not have static housing needs? More thinking on the linkages between the tenures that work in the market and how they can be used more dynamically to benefit people as they move through different life stages and income brackets would help with both monitoring the demand side of the housing question and planning a more targeted supply.
- Kerri Farnsworth: It would have been helpful to have had more on the cost of housing and the impact on living standards. This area of study seems to have become fallow since John Hill’s comprehensive report 10 years ago. In particular providing robust cost-benefit analyses evidence and monetisation of the linkages between housing and health would have been useful. From a macro perspective, what about the linkages between housing, agglomeration and economic growth?
- Boris Worrall: Given the amount of public land and the failure to release significant chunks of it without the public sector scrapping to get ‘best value’, it would have been interesting to have some further research, which builds on recent pieces from Civitas, on how this has held back housing.
- Martin Wheatley: As the government starts, post-Grenfell, to look again at estate regeneration, perhaps it is time to widen the debate beyond just bricks and mortar to looking at the benefits of regeneration in a wider social, physical and economic context that is not restricted/can cross local authority boundaries. This may also be pertinent in helping shed light on some of the current battles between residents and councils battling over radical estate demolition/rebuild.
- Chris Walker: Are there some devolution lessons that can be applied nationally? For instance the Scottish rent pressure zones?
- Mick Laverty: Does the fragmented housing association sector create a structural deadweight that limits the actual number of houses it can build?
- Beth Watts: Finally, although such lists are never really final, are we promoting new and young researchers to take a new/diverse viewpoint? Should Thinkhouse offer a cash prize for the best piece of housing research/analysis completed by someone under 30?
