The issue of stigma featured high on the agenda of many tenants
in informing the Social Housing Green Paper and although
not specifically mentioned as one of the 7 elements of the Charter
for Social Housing Residents in the Social Housing White Paper, the
White Paper makes reference to the 'See the Person' Campaign to
tackle stigma in social housing.
Now, a new report by Mercy Denedo (Durham University) and Amanze
Ejiogu (University of Leicester) points at social housing stigma
being much more complex than is usually assumed because it
intersects with other stigmas such as poverty stigma, crime stigma,
mental health and disabilities, and race and immigration stigma.
Several of these intersections are direct results of the
residualisation of social housing.
The report says that every day in England, people are judged
negatively and even actively discriminated against because they
rent their home from a social landlord. While it is hard to fathom
why such stigmatisation occurs, it is the reality faced by many
people and their families who are living in socially rented
accommodation in England. Although there is an undeniable evidence
of stigmatisation of social housing, research on social housing
stigma has been scant. This report explores how stigma is
constructed, how it is experienced, and what is being done to
challenge/address it by diverse stakeholders in the housing
sector.
In addition, it shows geographic and generational variations in
the intensity of stigma in England. Social housing residents are
shown to experience stigma in a variety of ways, ranging from their
interactions with their housing providers, local councils and their
contractors, neighbours, the police, GPs, at work, at school, with
potential employers etc. The report authors provide evidence of
these and other forms of stigmatisation, including postcode
stigmatisation and segregation through the use of "poor doors" in
this report.
Being stigmatised in this way has practical consequences for
social housing residents because it affects their everyday
realities, their quality of their life, and their life chances.
The report highlights that the government has consistently
approached social housing stigma as an issue to be tackled through
the planning system and that this approach has not been effective
in combating social housing stigma. The report also shows that
there is a growing awareness amongst housing associations and local
councils of the contribution of their policies and practices to the
stigmatisation of their tenants. Several landlords have already
taken steps to retrain their staff and make staff more aware of
stigmatising behaviours and practices. Besides retraining staff,
housing associations and local councils also have redesigned
procedures to give their residents a voice in the development of
policy and in-service delivery. However, these measures have had
very limited success. Efforts to challenge social housing stigma
have coalesced around approaches of rebranding social housing and
presenting alternative narratives of who the social housing tenant
is and what life in social housing is really like to change
societal perception and the media narratives on social housing.
The recommendations from this report require the government to
adopt a rights-based approach to housing, arguing that a
rights-based approach will make access to affordable housing a
fundamental human right and will enable people to stop using
stigmatizing language and rhetoric to describe social housing and
to engage with social housing residents. It will enable the
government and other stakeholders to recognise/understand the
intersection of social housing stigma with other stigmas and
develop effective and holistic policy measures to challenge/address
the stigma affecting the everyday realities, their quality of life,
and the life chances of social housing residents.
Click here for a full copy of the
report.
The ARCH Tenant Group will be asked to consider the report at
their next meeting in September.