The important role of communities in the repair and upgrade of social housing

At Windsor Clive Primary School in Cardiff, a group of parents offers tea and toast after drop off to other parents who might need it. The school is part of Cardiff Citizens, an alliance of 15 civil society organisations who take action to improve the lives of people in the city. Parents from Windsor Clive, along with their Family Engagement and Support Officer, parents from Pencaerau Primary School nearby, the local vicar, and other residents, make up the Caerau and Ely Action Team. The team meets regularly to talk about the challenges they face and how to solve them. A regular topic is housing. Issues abound – whether it’s overcrowded social housing, where parents sleep in the dining room or siblings share beds, repairs that have been waiting for months, or, most common – damp and mould causing myriad physical and mental health concerns.

Helen, a local resident who runs a small mental health charity, says ‘I had a chest infection so bad from damp and mould I had to go to hospital. When the council finally came to look, they said I needed to keep the heating on and the windows open every day of the year. How can I afford that. How can anyone afford that?’

Helen’s experience is not uncommon. Earlier this year, members of the action team undertook community organising training and spoke to 300 local people to understand the negative physical and mental health impacts of poor quality housing. Suzanne, parent and governor at Windsor Clive says that they ‘found that many people living in social housing don’t know their rights, or even what they are responsible for and what the council is responsible for. They feel like the repair process is a black hole. Tenants don’t feel like they have any power.’

Local people are fed up of unacceptable housing conditions. They are sick of things being done to them. They want to be involved in decisions about their homes and their lives. Across the border and 150 miles away in South London, Southwark Citizens are also seeking change. They worked with the leader of Southwark Council and officers to commission new training based on their experiences which will aid housing staff with their compassion and respect towards residents. They also agreed on new measures to be implemented in a Repairs Improvement Plan, including hiring locally based Neighbourhood Repairs Managers and a pledge that phone calls will be answered within five minutes and emails within 48 hours. Not only are residents at the forefront of these campaigns but they broaden the insights gained from their personal experiences by deeply listening to their wider communities. Through this method, Southwark Citizens were able to share with the council the specific issues and solutions which will improve the lives of their residents.

Back in Cardiff, the team are also active locally to provide support to the community they live in. They are working with the tenant engagement team at Cardiff Council, and with a housing association in the area, to organise social renters rights’ workshops that will run in the local primary schools. So, as Suzanne says ‘people know their rights and can feel a bit of power when it comes to their homes.’ They are also planning energy efficiency workshops in collaboration with National Energy Action to help people bring heating bills down before it gets too cold. Some of the group still have their homemade draught excluders from a workshop run years ago now.

But there are some changes which are beyond the capability of local people to do for themselves. Both Southwark and Cardiff Citizens are seeking to work with councils and housing providers to improve the fabric of their homes. They want to see home upgrade programmes which improve insulation and ventilation and eradicate the root causes of mould. Any upgrades must first address basic repairs such as broken windows, vermin and as one South London mum said, a front door which was broken for two years which made her fear for the safety of her two young sons.

It is not only demands that the community can make, there is an offer too. Building meaningful relationships with communities supports effective retrofit programmes. Trust can be low between residents and housing providers meaning that retrofitting processes can be long, drawn-out and costly, requiring many call outs. Residents are reticent to open the front door if they’re expecting a bad experience. Partnering with deep rooted community organisations can help to overcome this. Communities also have insight into the detail of how the homes work. We understand how each home functions, how it lives and breathes, each home as unique as the residents within it.  There is also the opportunity to gather data, indoor air quality meters, for example, to support bids to resource upgrade works.  

Local communities are an ally and can speak to national power. In July this year at the Citizens UK General Election Assembly in Westminster, Helen addressed Angela Rayner, asking her to provide the means for a healthy and comfortable home for all. In October, 200 people from nine cities and regions met their MPs on Parliament Square demanding an end to disrepair and, damp and mould. Organised communities are powerful. We will challenge poor standards but also work collaboratively to find a solution.

They are not ignorant to the challenging climate in which social housing providers find themselves. There is a desire to provide more and better social housing but capped rents, additional requirements and increasing costs have restricted what is possible. Through building relationships with social housing providers, communities strive to demand the best of what is within their power. They also work with them to influence national government to unlock the resources to enable providers to deliver the large-scale change which is needed.  On this, we are ready to work together.

After all, as Helen says ‘We want all our homes to be places where we feel happy and healthy, not where we feel despair.’