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What is the purpose of social housing?
The Chartered Institute of Housing today announces workshops to stimulate debate about the future of the sector. Melanie Rees explains more
What is social housing for? asks @melaniereesCIH #ukhousingRethinking Social Housing, latest details of @CIHhousing project #ukhousingWhat is social housing? What is it for? Who is it for?
These are fundamental questions – but can you answer them? If you can, could the people you work with? Could your tenants?
It’s time for all of us to reflect on these questions if social housing is to have a future.
Although the challenges we face today are similar in scale to those which the earliest social housing pioneers faced, the world has changed immeasurably.
And somewhere along the line, though we may not feel like we’ve lost our sense of purpose, are we really sure what that purpose is any more?
“Are we really sure what our purpose is any more?”
We know it’s fundamentally about providing homes, but what else? Who should benefit? How should they benefit? How should it be funded?
We can’t take any of these questions for granted any more, and now couldn’t be a more important time for us to take a long, hard look at them.
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For the first time in a while it feels like we’re having a two-way conversation. We’re making progress with a Conservative government which is willing to admit there is a need for housing for all, not just those who wish to own a home.
And the Grenfell Tower tragedy has thrust social housing into the political and public consciousness like never before.
“We think that debate should be a widespread one and that the sector should lead it.”
So there can be little doubt that the time to ask fundamental questions about where we go next is now.
The government has already started work to try to answer some of these questions, but at the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) we think that debate should be a widespread one and that the sector should lead it.
Our Rethinking Social Housing project, on which we’re working with organisations from across the sector, was set up to do exactly that – to explore these questions with a combination of engagement, research and polling.
And we’re pleased to be able to kick off with the first stage this week: a series of workshops which anyone can get involved in.
As much as this project is about compiling robust research to make recommendations to the sector and government, it is about stimulating debate – and what better place to start than with our own staff and residents and the people we work with?
Housing organisations, and I include CIH in this, are so busy trying to make the case for the work that they do with politicians and other influential people that it’s all too easy to forget that the people we house and work with have something hugely valuable to add to the debate about social housing.
Their views matter – perhaps more than any – and we can all do more to encourage our staff and tenants to be aware of what social housing is, what it does, and – crucially – what it should be.
“The people we house and work with have something hugely valuable to add to the debate.”
Our new workshop gives people who live, work or simply have an interest in social housing the chance to debate and explore fundamental questions by downloading a simple toolkit from our website.
We hope as many people as possible can get involved and have their say – and get something out of doing so, too. We’ve also launched a survey for individuals to give us their thoughts.
This is about so much more than talking. Having these discussions will help to connect us back to the importance of our purpose. It is how we will challenge some of the negative stereotypes and misconceptions about the work we do. And, most importantly of all, it is how we will get to the heart of what the role of social housing should be.
It’s time to take stock, engage and work out how we move forward.
We hope you will join us.
Melanie Rees, head of policy, Chartered Institute of Housing
Rethinking social housing
Rethinking social housing was launched by CIH in November 2017 and aims to combine original research and engagement with the sector, tenants, politicians and the public to explore fundamental questions about the future of social housing.
According to CIH, the project aims to:
- stimulate a wide-ranging debate about the future of social housing
- make the case for social housing
- understand and challenge perceptions of social housing
- influence and shape the direction of future housing policy and feed directly into the government’s housing green paper.
Anyone can take part in a Rethinking social housing workshop and the closing date for results is the end of March 2018.
A free online toolkit is available at cih.org/rethinkingsocialhousing so that people who work, live or otherwise have an interest in social housing can take part in the workshop, which takes around an hour and a half.
The sponsors of the project are Sovereign, Home Group, Peabody, Incommunities, Optivo, PA Housing, Riverside Group and South Liverpool Homes.
The project’s advisory group is co-chaired by Ken Gibb, professor in housing economics at the University of Glasgow and director the Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE), and Paul Tennant, chief executive of the Law Commission and former Orbit chief executive and CIH past president.
The advisory group for the project also includes Newcastle City Council, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Northern Housing Consortium, National Federation of ALMOs, Association of Retained Council Housing, Royal Town Planning Institute and Tpas.
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