COMMISSION ON

HOUSING AND WELLBEING

COVER SHEET – 3rd June 2014

Paper Title: / Summary of Community Engagement Report
Author: / Poverty Alliance
Summarised by Paul Bradley – Project Management Assistant
For further information contact Paul Bradley at .
Rationale of paper: / To provide a summary of the key findings from Poverty Alliance’s 28 page Community Engagement Report.
Action required by Commission: / To note paper. Commissioners should provide to the secretariat their availability in July/August to meet with a selection of participants involved in the series of workshops, focus groups and case studies conducted by Poverty Alliance.
Paper previously considered by: / This paper - including next steps - has been considered at a meeting with the Chair, Secretariat and Shelter colleagues.
Summary: / This summary is divided into for main sections (two pages per section).
The first section looks at the findings in relation to Housing, Health and Wellbeing. The second section draws on housing and social wellbeing. The third section considers housing and community wellbeing. The fourth section details the overall conclusions from the PA community engagement exercise.
Key points: / Water-tight and adequately heated homes important for all participants. Impact felt both mentally and physically.
Stable housing was deemed central to mental health wellbeing, a topic raised most regularly by participants.
Access to good quality employment deemed central to improved social wellbeing.
Current changes to welfare reform central to decline in social wellbeing.
Green spaces and general safety were key to community wellbeing.
Environmental issues should beviewed as less important than the concerns of tenants, although participants felt as though tenants were sometimes secondary to the environment.

Summary of Community Engagement Report

Housing, Health and Wellbeing

Importance of relationships

  • Linked safe, secure and affordable accommodation as essential to positive health outcomes.
  • Housing that was unsuitable in terms of affordability, location and quality was argued to contribute to negative health outcomes for people.
  • People discussed housing in the importance of ‘home’,a space where they could rest and relax, for family and social interaction.

Austerity

  • For low income households ways of mitigating the impact of austeritywere felt to be limited or in some cases non-existent. Families with children were most at risk of pressure.
  • Sacrifices included reducing consumption for example food vs.fuel.
  • Those with mental health problems all spoke of the fear of sanctions, and the stress and worry that this brought.

Housing Quality

  • Two key problems were presented- dampness and poorly insulated properties. Both impacted on households in terms of physical and mental health problems.
  • People spoke of being unsure where to get help or what their rights were. This was particularly prominent amongst those in private accommodation. Tenants often described feeling powerless and this had effects such as stress, depression, anxiety.
  • Those in the private sector appeared to be more vulnerable than those in social housing.

Access to Housing

  • Many discussed long waiting lists for social housing.
  • Frustration and lack of information was highlighted over allocation policies
  • Refugee and asylum seekersperceived that they were offered sub standard accommodation
  • Lack of specialist housing provision was highlighted for specific needs such as sheltered housing for the elderly.

Under occupancy

  • Clear that the bedroom tax was having a real impact on individual health, particularly on their mental health.
  • Financial implications of meeting the bedroom tax had presented severe distress and anxiety for households.
  • Mechanisms for finding the money included skipping meals, reducing social and leisure activities.
  • Problems of being unable to find the money and knowing that they wereaccumulatingarrearscaused worry and fear around the long term implications of this such as evictions.
  • People who had indicated to their housing provider that they would like to swap or move from their property had been unable to do so due to ashortfall of available properties.

Housing tenure

  • Types of tenure people hadaffected the choices and issues they faced in regards to their housing.
  • Private rented accommodation - insecurity of accommodation, issue of repairsand having to move from properties at short notice. Repercussions in the form of stress and anxiety.
  • Social housing - unable to make changes to the property without prior permission.
  • Tower block accommodation - viewed as creating exclusion and less desirable

Private landlords

  • Lack of rights in regards to their accommodation.
  • Security of property
  • Quality of accommodation
  • Repairs and maintenance of property,
  • Dealing with the landlord,
  • Fees and charges
  • Leaving tenancy

Housing and Social Wellbeing

Employment and Housing

  • Accessing decently paid employment underpinnedthe kinds of housing choices that could be made.
  • Lack of security and adequacy of incomeled to constrained housing choices, with lack of choice impacting on their individual wellbeing.
  • Individuals felteither vulnerable to eviction or trapped within accommodation and unable to leave.
  • Zero hours contracts left participants with significant shortfalls in his income on a month to month basis. Agreed that more needs to be done on this issue.
  • Lack of job opportunities for young people in their community, having a negative impact not only on the young people themselves but also on the wider community.
  • Felt that high rental costs in some areas would prevent people from relocating to find employment.
  • Highlights again the importance of choice for some people to their sense of wellbeing.

Housing, Place and Educational Attainment

  • Households that wereovercrowded had a higher likelihood of poorer educational attainment.
  • Overcrowding impacted on the ability of children to study and do their homework.
  • Disadvantaged areas or communities were often limited in choice in terms of schools.
  • Areas of social deprivation were often stigmatised and this also led to lower aspirations.
  • Amalgamation/closure of schools resulted in pupils having to travel further to reach the nearest school, limiting extra circular activities.
  • Payment of afterschool sessions and additional costs such as uniform meant that some childrenwere unable to take part - wider consumer culture was seen as problematic.

Persistent Poverty

  • Linked to low pay, employment opportunities, being a carer, disability or health conditions and lone parenthood.
  • Welfare system and the benefit rates were widely cited as a reason for demographics groups such as lone parents remaining in poverty.
  • Lack of supported or sheltered housing accommodation for older people.
  • Those who were full time carers off the elderly or childrenwere unable to access employment as a result of being carers.
  • Employment that was suitable or flexible enough for the transition to work was often unavailable.
  • Those who had engaged with pay day lenders became trapped in a vicious cycle of managing and mitigating the impact of the debt.
  • Knowledge of other credit facilities such as credit unions was often not widely known particularly by those demographics that would be targeted by pay day lenders.

Housing and access to services

  • Some within workshops discussed the need to ensurecommunity involvement in the development and improvement of local areas.
  • Some demographic groups were unheardor felt there were ignored in regards to the communities development and growth- refugee and asylum seekers felt invisible
  • Open and transparent planning process
  • Need for affordable social and leisure activities, good quality accommodation for all, support services for community needs such as older people, families and young people.

Housing and Community Wellbeing

Legislation and Housing

  • Increased need to inform people of their rights around housing.
  • Many tenants still unaware of introduction of the welfare reforms, bedroom tax, Universal Credit
  • Private rented accommodation was highlighted as an area that was in need of greater regulation.

Community Needs and Diversity

  • Need for appropriate community facilities to allow people to meet and integrate with different demographics – schemes that encourage integration
  • Housing allocation polices were viewed as putting people with different complex needs - need to balance different needs across communities.

Community Safety

  • Fear of crime was reported as limiting the activity to interactions for households within their local area. Refugees and asylum seekers fear hostile and negative interactions as well as physical attacks
  • Activities to build community cohesion in communities with higher rates of crime and anti-social behaviour were limited
  • Drug abuse and drug dealing were viewed as entrenched problemswe are failing to tackle the issue.
  • Participantsraised the issue ofderelict properties within communities which were often spaces seen as negative. These should be used by communities for purposes determined by the community. The example was given of community gardens or facilities for young people.
  • Temporary accommodation- due to the high turnover of occupants’ people reported feeling unsafe living near such properties.
  • ‘Notorious’ families - people described certain streets or areas having a reputation and being unable to leave their area once they had been housed within them.
  • Some good practice - safety changes made for women who had experienced domestic violence for example fitting alarms to properties and lights and safety chains to doors and so on.

Greenspace and the Community

  • Clean and well cared for areas were reported to improve well being.
  • Poor maintenance and areas with litter and vandalism were seen as negatively reflecting on communities and peoples sense of pride of the areas.

Sustainability and Housing

  • Mixed reactions.
  • Social housing providers focused on environmentally friendly housingyet not always clear how this would help individuals.
  • Providers need to do more to explain the rationale and benefits of the improved environmental aspects
  • Investment in transport and cheaper transport was argued to be a priority to enable people to engage fully with their wider community and allow them to access employment.

Participation and Housing

  • Limited opportunities for people to get their issues heard on housing.
  • Lack of feedback and apathy at change.
  • Felt that changes within communities took time and that this could be frustrating for those involved.
  • Greater engagement on future house building was needed.

Welfare Reform and Sustainability

  • Bedroom tax - effecting neighbourhood relations and family relations.
  • Changes in employment patterns, with more people in part-time and temporary employment, and some communities continuing to be impacted by high unemployment, were seen as changing the character of some communities.
  • Welfare reform was part of this process of fragmentation.
  • Sustainable communitiescould be seen as typified by a set of particular characteristics: decent and affordable housing, sustained and fulfilling employment, and supportive social networks.
  • Role of community and voluntary organisations was once again raised - was vital for their personal wellbeing.

Report Conclusions

Summary

  • Finding solutions in one area requires solutions in all.
  • Solutions will require change at the Scottish or UK level, but other changes will need to take place at the community level.
  • Simply improving housing will not be sufficient to improve wellbeing.
  • Community level activity – including developing relationships between and within communities – will be required to make the kind of sustainable changes required.

Health

  • Participantsconsidered stability of housing and decent homes as being central to mental wellbeing.
  • Mental health was raised most regularly and was clearly linked to a variety of issues –pressures around housing could have a real impact on individuals’ mental wellbeing.

Social

  • Participants were concerned about access to and quality of employment for themselves and for their children and grandchildren.
  • Linked for many people to their ability to live in decent houses.
  • Welfare reform issues were repeatedly raised. Current changes were seen to be having a negative impact on social wellbeing.
  • Accessible services were seen as important, not simply as part of a response to welfare change, but also as a way of building social wellbeing.

Community

  • Participants wanted change that ensured that they lived in water-tight and adequately heated homes.
  • Environmental concerns should not come above those of tenants.
  • The importance of green space in communities was highlighted by most groups.
  • Issues of community safety seen to be very important.

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