28 May 2021
Reflecting on the Domestic Abuse Act: a great leap forward but this is where the real hard work starts…
Claire Powell
Independent Consultant &
Tpas Policy Advisor
I’m a strategic policy analyst and in my line of work we don’t often speak from the heart. It’s all about understanding new policy and the landscape into which it’s dropped; about thinking things through.
But six months ago, I was angry. I wrote a blog about the newly-published Charter for Social Housing Residents. About how its promise that tenants would be ‘supported to take your first step to ownership’ was, in fact, a slap in the face for social housing.
And about the hypocrisy of celebrating key workers while continuing to undermine the genuinely affordable housing that makes precarious work sustainable without the deliberate humiliation of claiming benefits.
So, six months on, where are we?
Well, I’m still angry about the hypocrisy. Despite the copious evidence that poor housing and high death rates go hand in hand, there’s still no sign of a strategic response from government. And don’t get me started on the nurses’ pay settlement. So I’m not impressed by government policy.
The Charter – effectively the White Paper that emerged from consultations around the Social Housing Green Paper published in 2018 – said a lot about landlords being more professional and treating people with respect. But it seems to have translated that original post-Grenfell promise to tackle the stigma that social housing tenants face into little more than what some call the ‘customer interface’.
Combating stigma means so much more than good customer service or good manners – important though they are. Respect isn’t something that only happens when we’re face to face. Respect is also about the way we make policy; the way we plan our services and the way we deliver them day to day.
Yes, your landlord should treat you with respect. But what about your government? If it chooses the defence budget over foreign aid, which do we respect more? And if we choose to fund yet more home ownership initiatives rather than genuinely affordable social housing, do we respect aspiring homeowners, or do we respect people who make their home in social rented housing?
Some have said that the Charter puts tackling stigma in the ‘too hard’ box. But I think it’s simply missing the point.
Confronting stigma is also about what we choose to celebrate and how we talk about people. It’s fair to say that the economic impact of COVID-19 has changed the way that newspapers and politicians talk about people who struggle to make ends meet. Shop workers, carers, delivery drivers, hospital cleaners: the pandemic highlighted the value of roles that are too often filled by people on short term, minimum wage contracts without guaranteed hours.
If politicians can celebrate key workers, could they not also celebrate the homes that many key workers live in?
It’s become clear that hard work is not the route out of poverty that many were promised. With thousands claiming benefits for the first time, we’ve heard a lot less about strivers and skivers. We’re also hearing less of the false narrative about subsidised social housing from politicians, although that could just be because we’re hearing much less about social housing generally.
If politicians can celebrate key workers, could they not also celebrate the homes that many key workers live in? Could they not admit that genuinely affordable social rents make low paid insecure work that little bit less precarious. For lots of people, it’s social housing’s security and low rents that make work sustainable – and keeps our social fabric knitted together.
Damian Barr – a writer, columnist, and playwright who, as it happens grew up in a council house, put it best right at the start of the pandemic when he said “We’re not all in the same boat. We’re all in the same storm. Some are on super yachts. Some have just the one oar.”
In housing terms, those with just one oar are living in overcrowded homes, with limited access to outside space, unable to afford proper heating. It’s no coincidence that areas with poor housing have also had high death rates from coronavirus. In times of infectious disease, good quality social housing isn’t just an important economic lifeline, it’s literally life-saving.
I’d love to believe in a future where genuinely affordable housing is recognised as part of our social infrastructure just like education and healthcare.
I’d love to believe in a future where genuinely affordable housing is recognised as part of our social infrastructure just like education and healthcare; enabling people to grow, fulfil their potential, and live long healthy balanced lives. I’d love to think that massive government investment would support a modern equivalent of homes for heroes.
Not just today’s heroes, but the ones that are still growing up and will become the key workers, health care workers, volunteers and campaigning footballers of the future. A future where high quality, affordable, environmentally sustainable homes are available for everyone that needs them.
What will get rid of the stigma around social housing is investing in social housing, in recognising its value to key workers and others, and in acknowledging their value to all of us. With the right investment now, we can be better prepared for when the next storm comes. The heroes that help us through it might even get to have two oars each.
There are some rays of hope. Our sector agencies – the Housing Ombudsman, the Regulator of Social Housing and the new Building Safety Regulator – are all in the process of establishing resident panels to advise them on policy development, and to create a new layer of accountability.
And the Chartered Institute of Housing’s new Professional Standards places greater emphasis on listening to tenants and explicitly says that a housing professional’s job is to counter stigma in all its forms.
Of course, we’ve yet to see what comes of all this. But if the rest of us can manage to listen to, and respect, the voices of tenants and residents, then maybe the government’s continued indifference will be less of a problem.
A version of this article first appeared on the Tpas website in November 2020