Testing resilience

Working in social housing is emotional.  

Housing practitioners on our courses and those involved in our research projects often demonstrate a real passion and commitment to help and support people. 

This is an essential part of the identity of social housing and the professionals who work in the sector, and it is what sets us apart from the profit-driven private sector. 

It is exhausting and emotional work often undervalued by the government and others outside the sector.     

As noted in Inside Housing a few weeks ago in ‘The great service debate’, there is an increasing focus by many housing organisations on the ‘core offer’ with proposed reductions in additional services. 

The social housing service as we know it is shrinking. In order to be able to develop new homes, organisation chiefs argue that ‘additional’ services which support tenants must be cut back, as financial resources for social housing providers tighten.   

Tenant communication and transaction with landlords in the social sector is ‘channel-shifting’ to self-serve online methods. 

Organisations are ‘reshaping’, ‘rightsizing’ or whatever other euphemism is flavour of the day for cutting staff numbers. 

Massive savings must be made to cope with the impact of welfare reform on tenants and the impact of the 1% rent reduction on mainstream social housing providers, alongside a host of other global economic challenges that affect the bottom line.   

And yet, we must not be too quick to build more homes at any cost. The homes we build need to include social and affordable rental properties (not just Starter Homes for owner-occupiers) and the management service we deliver should reflect those values that have traditionally made our offer unique and stand out from the private sector. 

“Dissonance occurs where the felt responsibility of housing officers is in conflict with the stated new aims of their employer.”

In an era of reluctant governance and withdrawal of the state, the job of those working on the frontline in the social housing sector is even more stressful. 

The external pressures of austerity and welfare reform are manifest in the increasing use of food banks as an indicator of poverty; but also examples, as found in the Frontline Futures research in reports from housing officers, of suicide threats from tenants in the face of mounting arrears and benefits sanctions. 

Regardless of whether a social housing provider has decided to ‘reshape its offer’ and provide only core services, for those employed in the sector there is a tension between social and commercial, a schism in the values many came into the sector to live up to. There is a felt responsibility to help those in need.   

Dissonance occurs where the felt responsibility of housing officers is in conflict with the stated new aims of their employer. 

Where reduction in resources to deliver the service means there is less official time to provide support, individual staff still feel the need to do their best. 

Council and housing association officers are still trying to stretch themselves to continue to support residents who they care about; but this is in danger of becoming almost ‘apologetic caring’ – stealth support in a wider framework of service reduction.   

The commitment of those working in the social housing sector to key values of caring and support is remarkable. It is observable just how tiring this emotional input to continue to provide a good service in times of austerity is, and how important ‘resilience’ is to cope. But leaders and managers in housing organisations must support and nurture the development of resilience and attempt to embed this in organisational culture.   

Some housing organisations are training staff to be coaches and mentors to provide a vital space for listening and support for frontline officers to talk about their interactions with tenants, the challenging and emotional cases, and how that makes them feel.  

The language of resilience is increasingly used by managers, but lack of resources, time and organisational cultural change means this is not always genuine and certainly not universal; we need more examples to lead the way in the sector.    

To try and explore the notion of ‘resilience’ in the social housing sector, and in order to build upon the previous research for Frontline Futures, we are running a short online survey and will follow on with a free workshop for practitioners in the summer, for those interested. 

Jo Richardson, professor, De Montfort University