5. Your home: Your Wellbeing
EDDC have been working with LiveWest and Birmingham University to carry out a longitudinal study to establish and better understand the relationship between tenant wellbeing and their home. We have engaged with the same social housing and private sector tenants over the last three years, an approach which enabled us to measure the impact of policy changes and to map our tenants’ journey. This in turn provided us with that deeper understanding of the positive impact that safe and secure housing can have on a person’s mental and physical wellbeing.
The data coming out of this research strongly suggests that social housing has a positive impact on individual wellbeing relative to other tenure options, in particular around anxiety and life-satisfaction.
The research also showed the important role that a landlord can play in tenant wellbeing. The evidence suggests that respondents who were satisfied with their landlords are 25% less likely to say there is a problem with their home that negatively affects their wellbeing. Satisfaction with maintenance and repairs are both also associated with more happiness and less anxiety.
The findings of this important research have been used to support and inform the direction and priorities set out in this Strategy.