Why improving social housing could be remarkably simple (and affordable)

Tragedies in social housing, such as the Grenfell Tower fire^[1] in 2017 and the death of toddler Awaab Ishak^[2] due to damp living conditions in 2020, remain shocking. As a coroner commented at the time^[3], “How in the UK in 2020 does a two-year-old child die as a result of exposure to mould?”

Since then developments like Awaab’s Law^[4] have increased landlords’ accountability for delivering decent homes. However, improvements to housing stock may appear to be happening at a snail’s pace, as shown by the tower block fire^[5] in Dagenham, east London, in 2024.

But capturing data and feedback from social housing tenants is notoriously tricky. This can be due to the range of ways tenants prefer to communicate (from digital tools to landlines, physical post and in-person) as well as limited willingness to engage with authorities. This means that tenant perspectives are frequently unheard.

As customers, if we purchase a product and something is wrong, we know we have consumer rights and can have the complaint acted upon. The social housing sector is different. It has become increasingly stigmatised^[6], resulting in areas of social housing^[7] being associated with higher crime rates, social deprivation and inequality, mental health issues and addiction.

Consequently, social housing tenants include vulnerable people on low incomes, who often experience digital inequality and less agency and control over their home environment. They rely on social housing stock availability and on landlords for the state of repair of their home.

While tenants can of course raise concerns over quality and maintenance with their housing provider, their voice has frequently gone unheard, as exemplified by the case of Awaab’s parents^[8]. But it shouldn’t be difficult to change this^[9].

My colleague and I share a longstanding interest in social housing service performance. We wanted to understand how technology might support improvement in the sector and help guard against issues like the ones mentioned above.

Social housing is not typically associated with high technology, due to the financial constraints typical across the public sector, combined with a sometimes limited appetite for innovation. Yet the potential opportunities to use tech to improve the tenant experience appeared bountiful. Or at least, that’s what we thought.

Our research^[10] was designed to explore how tenants’ future experiences of social housing might be improved through the application of technology. We collected data from 35 experts from global tech organisations, including Amazon Web Services, as well as organisations dealing with social housing policy, senior social housing leaders (chief executives, directors or heads of service), frontline staff and tenants.

While we weren’t surprised by the broad improvement areas identified (around property standards, service delivery, integration of technology and empowerment), we did not expect that so many of the issues could be solved with low-tech (or even no-tech) solutions.

We used the Delphi method^[11], which is a way of getting an overall picture of the future by aggregating responses from experts in different disciplines. We asked how each expert thought the “tenant of the future” might look.

In our findings, it emerged that they believed customers (that is to say, tenants) will have higher expectations in a number of areas associated with their housing.

1. Property standards

This emphasised the need for decent homes^[12]. This means social housing organisations and landlords being more aware of the quality of their properties and, in particular, paying greater attention to insulation to help with the cost of living.

2. Human-centred services

This would emphasise the importance of a contact model where tenants can raise concerns or complaints face to face through a designated housing officer. This theme also suggested that re-evaluating the core purpose of social housing would be helpful, including the role of and contribution to the wider community.

For example, respondents suggested increasing levels of community engagement by involving tenants in decision making. This would not only increase their agency, but also help to reduce stigma and stereotypes around social housing. This is an area where low or no-tech solutions are possible. One respondent said: “Whilst digital can yield massive improvements to service delivery, it should not be a replacement for … conversations with tenants, including face-to-face engagement.”

3. Making use of technology

While we expected demands in this area to be high, suggestions were in fact surprisingly modest. Respondents suggested things like online forms or live chat functions, and the use of smart devices to reduce energy consumption, detect mould or monitor things like boilers, for example.

4. Tenant empowerment

Collecting feedback allows landlords to understand tenants’ needs and work with them to develop a more customer-centred approach to social housing.

References

1. ^{^} Grenfell Tower fire (www.bbc.co.uk)
2. ^{^} Awaab Ishak (www.theguardian.com)
3. ^{^} commented at the time (www.bbc.co.uk)
4. ^{^} Awaab’s Law (england.shelter.org.uk)
5. ^{^} tower block fire (www.bbc.co.uk)
6. ^{^} increasingly stigmatised (www.insidehousing.co.uk)
7. ^{^} social housing (www.cih.org)
8. ^{^} Awaab’s parents (theconversation.com)
9. ^{^} difficult to change this (theconversation.com)
10. ^{^} research (www.housingexecutive.co.uk)
11. ^{^} Delphi method (www.rand.org)
12. ^{^} decent homes (www.housing.org.uk)
13. ^{^} epiximages/Shutterstock (www.shutterstock.com)
14. ^{^} build new homes (www.bbc.co.uk)