Tenancies in social housing have great potential to help people to take charge of their finances and to avoid a downward spiral of debt. But simply offering people tenancies does not guarantee this. For instance, people moving in and out of work, young people and first-time tenants often fall into arrears and so can lose their tenancies and the financial stability that this security offers.
Our Improving Financial Confidence programme focuses on social housing tenants in England to help ensure that they have the knowledge and support needed to make good financial decisions and to avoid falling further into debt. As part of the programme we are working in partnership with social landlords to support information, advice and support for tenants in these groups.
We have appointed a partnership led by Ecorys to evaluate the programme, and in particular to help us and our partners to identify which approaches work best in supporting tenants. We believe that the kind of support that the programme offers should benefit not only tenants, but also social landlords – who should face lower arrears and need to carry out fewer evictions.
The evaluators have also set up a website which includes more detailed information about their study.
If the evaluation can demonstrate the value of this type of support, we hope that more social landlords will support successful projects of this type in future.
Please contact us if you have any questions or comments.