Lifting the lid on social housing stigma
This month, we held two bootcamp sessions with colleagues and customers to kick start the conversation on the stigma facing many people living in social housing.
The sessions focussed on looking at how we communicate and how we can make sure we don’t reinforce stigma in our communications with you. The discussions were a first step in the right direction and we’ll be holding more sessions looking at other areas outlined in the Stop Social Housing Stigma campaign journey planner. We’ve also created an action plan with areas to focus on based on these sessions which we'll share with you as we move forward.
One customer who attended said: “I was interested in coming to talk about stigma today – the title caught my attention as it’s not something you hear about often. I’ve not experienced it myself, but I know people that have, especially where I grew up. It happens and it’s getting worse, but it’s a hard problem to solve with harmful media attention.
“I think Golding could share more of the work it’s doing with neighbourhoods and charities to help combat stigma.”
If you’d like to give your views, the Stop Social Housing Stigma campaign group are running a national survey at the moment. They say:
“Tenants sometimes feel that they're treated as second class citizens by their landlords, by politicians and by the general public – this was the issue that was most raised in a series of post Grenfell Ministerial tenant roadshows held in 2017.
Eight years later in 2025 – how do tenants feel? Have the Government and landlords done enough yet to tackle social housing stigma? What would you like to see happening?
If you’d like to contribute to this national survey, you can complete it by clicking the button below.
If you’d like to put your name down for one of our future customer bootcamps on stigma you can email engage@goldinghomes.org.uk and we’ll contact you later in the year.