Social housing is one of the largest single capital investments by the state in our poorest communities. Some £37bn has been invested by government into affordable housing over the last 35 years. But it is doubtful that the social return on this investment amounts even a tenth of that figure. By any measure, the potential of social housing in rebuilding civil society has been gravely underutilised. It is time to recognise that social housing providers are uniquely placed to deliver a far broader range of public goods and community benefits – and that their tenantsdesperately need them to adhere to this higher and better standard.
Too many of our social housing providers have a dull and blinkered view of their role. Simply fulfilling a remit to build new homes is a necessary but not sufficient condition of a good and effective housing association. With all that they have in terms of assets, capital and capacity, far too many social housing providers do far too little for their communities. But the presence of social landlords at the heart of their community makes them the perfect vehicle for delivering the civic and social impact that our damaged and unequal society urgently needs.
Mutual and co-operative housing models could utterly reshape the lives of residents and staff alike. Tenant-led governance can offer the perfect platform for creating inspired economic development. Poplar HARCA in east London, one of the first tenant-led housing bodies to emerge in the UK, purchased under-used assets from the local council to tie mutualism to an ownership agenda; communities can come "by proxy" to own and improve a certain building or facility to help make their neighbourhood a better place.
Out of this, local services are transformed: from health clinics to parent groups, youth clubs to inter-generational programmes. At tenants' behest social, physical and aesthetic wellbeing is served.
There are other examples. Rochdale Boroughwide Housing hopes to create the first tenant and employee co-owned mutual social landlord in the UK, using ownership as a catalyst for a changed set of relationships between landlord, tenants and employees. Black Country Housing Group has adopted a local school because it saw – rightly – that tenant families were being held back by poor schooling, and it had a wider responsibility to their futures.
Cosmopolitan Housing Group plans to use surpluses from student housing to fund bursaries for young people in Cheshire and Merseyside, sending pupils from its most disadvantaged communities to Eton, generating role models and transforming aspiration in our most disadvantaged areas.
Social landlords must offer their tenants more than low rent housing. Housing associations should live up to their name and become an associative platform driving social and economic renewal for those bereft of assets and low on hope and opportunity. It is time to put the social back into social housing.
This article originally appeared on the Guardian Professional Housing Network blog, on Tuesday 13th September 2011.