Moving from Concern to Concrete Change

The most effective way to build public support for creating more social housing is to frame it as a way of tackling poverty.

The British public is more worried about poverty than they have been in a long time. There is increasing empathy with the circumstances of the low income and unemployed, and a trend towards increasing support for welfare and benefits.

The brief shows that the public become supportive of major, sustained investment in social housing when they see how social homes can help free people from poverty.

It contains recommendations for making the case for more social housing by linking the hardship and harm of poverty with the high cost and poor quality of existing housing.

It also shows how to talk about social housing in order to:

• Increase positive perceptions of social housing.
• Move social housing up in the public’s agenda.
• Boost support for an increase in government funding for social housing.

This brief is based on comprehensive frame testing research carried out by the FrameWorks Institute. A fuller description of the methods behind this research is available as a download from this page.

This brief is part of a project on framing housing in the UK conducted by the FrameWorks Institute in partnership with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Nationwide Foundation.