When Jill* was assigned government housing after years of domestic abuse and months in women’s shelters, she was thrilled. She was grateful for a roof over her head – a place to call home as she started the long journey of piecing her life back together.
Gratitude is one of many emotions a person might feel when provided with social housing. The emotional dimensions of housing are not part of the calculus behind housing allocation in England, but a more ‘emotional’ approach to housing might have benefits for society, and long-term cost savings for governments.
English households already on the edge in 2022 are more likely to fall into homelessness. A chronic shortage of housing, decades of failure to build social housing, the steady creep of amateur private landlords charging market rents and the spiralling cost-of-living crisis means households are being pushed to the limit. As of September 2021, a total of 121,680 children were housed in temporary accommodation, resulting in psychological harm and ongoing challenges.
