CIH Rethinking Social Housing Project Update

Melanie Rees, CIH

CIH’s Rethinking Social Housing project is now in full swing.

Formally launched in January, we wanted to get a national debate going about the role and purpose of social housing – and we’ve been blown away by the response we’ve had!  We developed a toolkit to help people to hold their own local workshops to discuss and reflect on what social housing is, its value and who it’s for. So far we’ve had results from 96 workshops (we’re very grateful to the Northern Housing Consortium for their support in delivering events in the North) and we expect to have even more by the deadline on 31 March. We’ve also had over 756 responses to our online survey. We’ll start the analysis in earnest at the start of April and will hopefully have something to share publicly by the end of April.

Alongside this, we are working with Ipsos MORI to carry out a public perception survey to help us to understand what the general public thinks and understands about social housing. This will happen during April and we expect to be able to report the results early in May. We are also working with CaCHE (the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence) to build up a picture of who is currently living in social housing.

We’ll be sharing results as they become available and will formally launch our findings, along with recommendations to government and the sector, at Housing 2018 in Manchester on 26, 27 and 28 June.

If you would like to know more, contact CIH head of policy Melanie Rees.