Understanding the ‘Wider Role’ activities of Community Controlled Housing Associations in sustaining tenancies: A case study approach

Abstract

By drawing on 12 semi-structured interviews with tenants and one focus group with professionals in a Community Controlled Housing Association in the city of Glasgow, UK, I explore the impact of wider role activities on tenancy sustainment. By taking inspiration from Amartya Sen's capability approach, tenancy sustainment is here understood beyond just 'paying the rent', being linked to all the tangible and intangible, actual or possible benefits of having a stable, decent place of residence such as access to state institutions or the nourishment of a good home. This study finds that tenants may lose their 'capability' to sustain their tenancy due to difficult experiences and tragic life events and that engagement with the wider role service has drastically improved their lifestyle and provided them with confidence in their broader capabilities that goes beyond the ability to sustain a tenancy.
Given the crucial importance of wider role activities to the capability of the most vulnerable tenants to sustain their tenancy and given the fact that these activities are self-financed by the housing association through rents, this study calls for the necessity to put in place more generous and fairer financing systems through grants to associations and tenants to subsidise the service and guarantee its long-term existence.