Social housing and new forms of tenant engagement: welfare, governance and active citizenship. A report of findings.

Abstract

Housing Associations (HAs) operate at the community level between the state, market, and individual, and in the recent political context of austerity, state roll-back, and welfare reform, have been tasked with providing their tenants with an increasing range of locally-based ‘welfare’ services aimed at creating socially and economically ‘responsible’ citizens. As the remit of HAs has broadened, their need to engage with their tenants has become more urgent. Based on research with two London-based HAs, this report of findings considers the processes and experiences of this reform agenda through an exploration of HAs and new forms of tenant engagement. Many HA tenants have been hit hard by recent government welfare reforms and find themselves in often vulnerable and precarious situations. HAs offer an increasingly wide range of ‘welfare’ services to support their tenants, covering areas such as health, finance, training, employment, and information and advice. Our research is clear: those social housing tenants who use these services are overwhelmingly positive about them, valuing in particular the personalised, often one-to-one, support they are often offered. This is in contrast to experiences of accessing services from other providers. This report highlights the key findings which are of particular interest to HA s and the wider social housing sector.