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Leslie is an experienced housing consultant. Her areas of expertise include: resident engagement and scrutiny, project management, ...more
A new tenants’ group is urging the housing minister to continue the work on engagement his predecessor started. Leslie Channon explains more
In Grenfell’s wake, prime minister Theresa May resolved in parliament that after the TV cameras had moved on, social housing tenants would never be forgotten, but “brought into the political process”.
A good start was made, with nine ministerial events held with social housing tenants across the country at the close of 2017.
Previous housing minister Alok Sharma and the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) – now the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) – worked in close collaboration with national tenant organisations to develop the ministerial events which enabled personal discussions with more than 1,000 tenants – finding out the issues important to people living in social housing across the country.
The housing minister was clearly moved and inspired on many occasions. Many issues were raised in the roadshows. Tenure stigmatisation and the negative stereotyping of social housing tenants was one.
“A substantial power shift to tenants is needed.”
The Benefit to Society campaign particularly seeks to counteract it.
Involving tenants in all areas affecting them – including having an influential voice in Westminster – was another.
In the rousing words of one tenant at the London ministerial event, a substantial power shift to tenants is needed – a paradigm-changing moment which recognises that tenants are the ambassadors for the social housing sector.
Paternalism has never worked, and informed and committed tenants are the best qualified to represent and speak for us.
A group, made up of representatives of national tenant organisations and other involved tenants, called A Voice for Tenants has been set up to steer this.
A challenging aspiration because it needs to not only articulate the many aims and aspirations of tenants to government and other housing stakeholders, but we also need to ensure that what we say represents the views of the eight million social housing tenants across the country.
We know there are landlords out there who just don’t yet get the value of working in partnership with their tenants.
We also know landlords who do, and we see the rewards ad infinitum, not only to the landlord but the tenants, too.
“There are landlords out there who just don’t yet get the value of working in partnership with their tenants. We also know landlords who do.”
The business benefits of tenant involvement were clearly evidenced in the An Investment Not a Cost report, produced by four national tenant organisations for the DCLG in 2015.
A sweeping paradigm shift is required to enact the change that is needed to succeed.
2017 ended on a high, with a level of confidence putting us on an upward trajectory to achieve this goal.
From the successful tenant engagement events, mutual trust and collaborative working with the government, we anticipated the forthcoming Social Housing Green Paper would be the tipping point needed for substantial change.
2018, and a new housing minister, Dominic Raab, will now lead the development of the green paper.
MHCLG officers who also worked diligently with us on the ministerial events will brief the new minister to ensure that the learning gathered in the events will still inform the green paper.
But expectations among tenants are now high and we keenly await how the housing minister will ensure that he delivers on the commitments made.
This is indeed a pivotal moment. We are optimistic.
The A Voice for Tenants group is ready to work with the new housing minister and continue the great work we started with his predecessor.
Leslie Channon, director, Tpas – on behalf of the A Voice for Tenants group
This piece was co-written by Nic Bliss
A group of 14 associations and their tenants have got together to challenge common narratives about social housing residents through a campaign called Benefit to Society.
As part of this, the campaign has produced a Fair Press for Tenants guide to help journalists portray social tenants and social housing fairly.
Inside Housing is backing the campaign and will help fact-check and scrutinise articles that portray tenants in a negative light.
Send examples of unfair, misleading or inaccurate reports about social housing tenants to carl.brown@insidehousing.co.uk.