Content

Current Research

Your Home, Your Wellbeing

Over 1500+ residents across East Devon living in social rented, private rented and shared ownership accommodation responded to a survey asking them questions about their home and quality of life.

As suspected, having a good home matters to overall life satisfaction but what was more unexpected was how satisfaction with the landlord is strongly associated with happiness and lower levels of anxiety. We found that social housing was not the drag on life chances and was not detrimental to wellbeing as is often assumed. On the contrary, our evidence suggests that, compared to the private rented sector, a social home is a driver of better overall wellbeing and landlord satisfaction.

Evidence from the study has highlighted many areas where housing is impacting on wellbeing and this is what our future service delivery plans will consider. Notably, the prevalence of mental health issues for both current and future tenants, the financial vulnerability of certain groups, such as women and households with children and those over 65 years of age and how problems with a home - keeping warm and noisy neighbours are affecting wellbeing.

Above all else what needs to be remembered from this research is providing homes is not just about bricks and mortar, it’s about quality of life.

Your home, Your Wellbeing results can be found here.