Social housing in Sheffield – research for article

Hello

I’m a freelance journalist, lived in Sheffield up to 2010 & worked as a housing officer for most of the 00s.

I'm researching a piece for Inside Housing magazine. It's looking to explore how wider trends are affecting the experience of living in social housing & in particular whether people feel more stigmatised as tenants than they used to.

Obviously you don't have to look far to find newspaper articles or blog/social media posts badmouthing certain areas or estates, including some in Sheffield.

This is nothing new. But in recent years an increase in media/politicians' narratives about 'benefit scroungers', 'welfare ghettoes', 'sink estates' etc has combined with policies like the bedroom tax that specifically target social tenants.

At the same time many housing associations are behaving more like commercial developers, merging to form bigger businesses (often without much in the way of consultation) and getting more remote from the communities they were set up to serve.

In places like Sheffield we've of course seen stock transfers of estates to some of these organisations, while the rest of the housing controversially went back from Sheffield Homes to the council (which once again has no money).

I'm interviewing tenants' & residents' groups around the country to chat over the impact of the above national/local factors on how it feels to live in social housing.

I'm also asking people about their changing relationships with social landlords and whether they feel they are on the side of the tenant, listen to people's views etc.

I am already in touch with a number of tenants’ reps across Sheffield but would love to hear from others, especially remaining social tenants in the redeveloped bits of Park Hill or residents on estates like Shiregreen, Wybourn, Hyde Park etc where the homes went over to a housing association.

I’ll most likely be in town for a few days early March to meet people, or can talk over the phone if preferred. Drop me a direct message or just chip in below with thoughts. Thanks for reading

If you’d like to assist the OP please contact them via PM.

Closing (as is forum policy on research etc)