Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1893/32731
Appears in Collections:Faculty of Social Sciences Journal Articles
Peer Review Status: Refereed
Title: Intervening in the cycle of poverty, poor housing and poor health: the role of housing providers in enhancing tenants' mental wellbeing
Author(s): Garnham, Lisa
Rolfe, Steve
Anderson, Isobel
Seaman, Pete
Godwin, Jon
Donaldson, Cam
Keywords: Health inequalities
Housing
Place
Poverty
Realist
Tenant Wellbeing
Qualitative
Issue Date: Mar-2022
Date Deposited: 18-Jun-2021
Citation: Garnham L, Rolfe S, Anderson I, Seaman P, Godwin J & Donaldson C (2022) Intervening in the cycle of poverty, poor housing and poor health: the role of housing providers in enhancing tenants' mental wellbeing. Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 37 (1), pp. 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-021-09852-x
Abstract: Poverty, poor housing and poor health are complexly interconnected in a cycle that has proven resistant to intervention by housing providers or policy makers. Research often focuses on the impacts of the physical housing defects, particularly upon rates of (physical) illness and disease. There has been comparatively little research into the ways in which housing services can underpin the generation of positive health and, especially, wellbeing. Drawing on qualitative data from 75 tenants in the social and private rented sectors, this paper describes the findings of a research project that tracked tenants’ experiences across their first year in a new tenancy in Greater Glasgow, Scotland. The project collected data on tenants’ perceptions of housing and housing service quality, financial coping and health and wellbeing, which was analysed using the principles of Realist Evaluation to elucidate impacts and causal pathways. Being able to establish a sense of home was key to tenants’ wellbeing. The home provided many tenants with a recuperative space in which to shelter from daily stressors and was a source of autonomy and social status. A sense of home was underpinned by aspects of the housing service, property quality and affordability which are potentially amenable to intervention by housing providers. These findings raise questions about the extent to which social housing providers and the private rental market in the UK are able to meet the needs of vulnerable tenants. They suggest that approaches to housing provision that go beyond providing a basic dwelling are needed to successfully intervene in the cycle of poverty, poor housing and poor health.
DOI Link: 10.1007/s10901-021-09852-x
Rights: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Licence URL(s): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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