Stop treating social housing tenants like children, ombudsman tells landlords

The inquiry into the Grenfell Tower disaster found that the relationship between tenants and the Kensington and Chelsea Tenants Management Organisation was ‘characterised by distrust’. Photograph: Guy Bell/Rex/Shutterstock

Some social housing landlords still treat tenants like children and behave in the same adversarial and defensive way as the Grenfell Tower landlord, the government-appointed social housing ombudsman has said.

Speaking after the publication of the public inquiry report into the 2017 fire that claimed 72 lives, Richard Blakeway warned leaders of social housing groups to end “parent-child” relationships with tenants and instead “see people, not problems”.