--- title: "Homes for Heroes" episode: 37 date: 2021-07-22 guest: "Mushtaq Khan" canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/37-homes-for-heroes audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-037/audio.mp3 --- # Homes for Heroes Joanne Lockwood is joined by Mushtaq Khan to explore what “homes for heroes” should mean in the UK today, in the context of long-running housing shortages and affordability pressures. They discuss how policy choices over decades—such as prioritising home ownership, the impact of Right to Buy, and inconsistent regulation of the private rented sector—have contributed to insecurity, poor property standards, short tenancies, and rising costs. The conversation also touches on tragedies such as Grenfell and what it revealed about standards, accountability, and inequality. Mushtaq and Joanne examine how housing conditions shape people’s health and wellbeing, including the links between secure housing, mental health, and outcomes during the pandemic. They also consider how stigma, discrimination, and segregation affect communities, and why tenant voice and community cohesion matter. Towards the end, Mushtaq shares the focus of Housing Diversity Network’s work, including inclusive leadership and governance, workforce development and mentoring, community-responsive services, and accreditation to help housing organisations improve their equality, diversity and inclusion impact. ## Chapters - 00:00 — UK homeownership focus needs rental sector regulation. - 11:01 — Letting agents prioritise landlords over tenants' interests. - 13:59 — Housing organisations: landlords and community anchors. - 20:40 — Homeownership decline demands major house building programme. - 23:46 — Separate entrances highlight inequality in housing developments. - 27:47 — Homelessness extends beyond visible rough sleeping. - 34:43 — UBI empowers planning, reducing poverty and stress. - 41:36 — Sustainability and class impact neighbourhood planning decisions. - 46:35 — Working to unite Oldham's divided communities. - 54:29 — Diversify leadership by including varied lived experiences. - 56:00 — Leadership boards resist diversity despite apparent benefits. - 01:01:13 — Subscribe; exciting guests coming on Inclusion Bites. ## Key takeaways - The importance of proactive community engagement by housing associations to understand and address residents' concerns effectively. - Alternative methods for engaging tenants, such as door knocking, social media feedback, and incentivisation. - The rapid resolution of homelessness through providing accommodation, coupled with the need for intensive support for those affected by complex issues like mental health. - The rise and normalisation of food banks in response to increasing poverty and the role of the benefits system in exacerbating financial instability. - The case for Universal Basic Income (UBI) in mitigating poverty and offering financial security, especially in the wake of automation's impact on jobs. - The systemic and historical issues within the housing market that perpetuate inequalities, including discrimination against marginalised groups. - Encouraging diverse board representation within housing associations to better reflect and serve their diverse communities. ## FAQs ### What are the major challenges faced by housing associations in engaging with residents? Housing associations struggle because many residents are reluctant to participate or feel overwhelmed by participation requests. Proactive engagement through door-to-door visits, one-on-one sessions, and a better effort to understand resident concerns are suggested solutions. ### How can housing associations improve resident engagement outside traditional meetings? Alternative methods like door knocking, incentivisation, and using social media for feedback can be effective. These approaches consider the anxiety many residents have about public speaking and other commitments that make traditional meeting attendance challenging. ### What does the phrase "when people are hard to reach, you have to reach harder" signify? This expression summarises the need for housing associations to exert extra effort in engaging residents who are difficult to reach, striving for more inclusive and proactive communication. ### How was homelessness quickly resolved as discussed in the episode? Homelessness was rapidly addressed by providing people with accommodation within 10 days. However, Mushtaq Khan stresses the need for intensive support due to the complex issues faced by those previously homeless, such as mental health challenges. ### Why have food banks become normalised since the early 2010s? The rise and normalisation of food banks are attributed to increasing poverty and the exacerbating effects of the pandemic, making them a critical response to meet basic needs. ### What are the critiques of the state’s withdrawal from support systems highlighted in the podcast? The state has shifted from providing direct support to imposing loans and benefit sanctions, necessitating the reliance on food banks. The benefits system is also criticised for means testing and the stigma attached, which pressures claimants excessively. ## Transcript Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood, and I'm your host for the Inclusion By Its podcast. In this series, I've interviewed a number of amazing people and simply had a conversation around the subject of inclusion, belonging, and generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive. If you'd like to join me in the future, then please do drop me a line to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. That's S-E-E Change Happen dot co dot uk. You can catch up with all of the previous shows on iTunes, Spotify, and the usual places. So plug in the headphones, grab a decaf, and let's get going. Today is episode 37 with the title Homes For Heroes. And I have the absolute honor and privilege to be joined by a great friend and colleague, Mushtaq Khan. Mushtaq describes himself as someone who helps the health social housing sector become more inclusive. When I asked Mushtaq to describe his superpower, he said that he's still going strong and active in his fifties, playing football and tennis. Hello, Mushtaq. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Joanne. It's really good to be on the Mushtaq Khan: show. We've got to know each other really well over the last 12 months, although we've never met in person. I'd like to say we've got a really good working relationship, and I value your input into the housing sector. Joanne Lockwood: Thanks, Mushtaq. So when we checked earlier, you're talking about homes for heroes. What do you mean by that? Mushtaq Khan: So when I did my housing studies course, we did a little bit about World War 1 and people returning from the trenches and British politicians saying that we wanted homes fit for heroes. And I think it's just as important now, 2021, we've got a housing crisis. In fact, we've got multiple housing crises across the country. And it's really important that we, as a society, can build homes and houses that are suitable for today's needs and that can help people, live and thrive and be the best that they can be. So you say Joanne Lockwood: housing crisis, where's that come from? Is it snuck up on us, or is it a a a steady rot? I Mushtaq Khan: think we've had a major housing crisis probably for the last 30 or 40 years. Governments of all persuasions have pushed homeownership, as the tenure of choice, and homeownership has its place. We've had a denigration of social rented housing. We've had a load of houses that have been sold off through the right to buy. We have got children who Jo parents and children who've got issues because their children can't afford to get on the housing market. We've got large swathes of the country which are unaffordable. London, for example, is unaffordable and many of the our cities aren't affordable. And people are spending far more of their income on housing than I than I feel that they should be. So we've not got enough houses. Those that we've got are probably in the wrong place, and those that we've got haven't been refurbished and bought up to today's standards either. Joanne Lockwood: I suppose that was highlighted by what tragedy such as Grenfell where building regs, contractors, housing stock ownership is maybe not socially responsible as it should be. No. So Grenfell is Mushtaq Khan: a it sums up all that's wrong with the housing field at the moment and that you have got some of the poorest people in society living in the heart of one of the richest boroughs in the country. And those, people were shut off from the rest of society and that the local authority which ran those houses decided to clad their tower block in material that was flammable to make it, the because it was one of the cheapest options. And it was to shut off those people from the rest of of societies like, seen but not heard. And almost all the people who died from the tragedy were from a black and minority ethnic background. 4 years on, we still have the ramifications, the inquiries still going on, whether anybody will ever get prosecuted or whether any sanctions will apply. You know, it's open to question. Joanne Lockwood: Is it a British problem, a UK problem? How does social housing work in other countries in Europe? Mushtaq Khan: So I think homeownership and the emphasis on homeownership is a particularly British problem. I know that many European countries have got a far more thriving private rented sector and a social housing sector in places like Holland, for example. And they also have much more regulation and control over the private rented sector. You have rent controls, for example, which we had for many years up until the sixties and beyond, and they've been steadily whittled away to having no rent controls in the private rented sector. I mean, I'm a big proponent of having a private rented sector that is well regulated where landlords are monitored and where the standard of properties is is is of a high standard Joanne rents are are controlled, and we just simply haven't got that source of issue. I mean, you know, the private rented sector in large parts of the country is poorly managed. It's of low quality, and it's a dumping ground for people who can't go anywhere else. Joanne Lockwood: I've had one of the other troubles we have at the moment is is is tenure. Jo the leases tend to be in private rented sector for 12 months time which makes it very difficult for people to put down roots, plan for the future. You're almost always thinking about your next renewal, you don't get that chance to just relax in your home. Is that the challenge that maybe the the private rented sector faces? Mushtaq Khan: Yeah. Again, we think that the leases or I think the leases in the private rented sector should be a lot longer. There's all these section 8 evictions where people can be evicted without notice. It's about having a better regulated private rented sector where landlords are also registered. Some councils have compulsory what's the word? Compulsory registration compulsory registration for landlords. I think if you want to be a private landlord, you should have to go through a registration process and not just be a fly by night, a rackman type landlord. You know, I did a lot of work in in northern towns. So for example, in Oldham, we did a survey of how many lettings agency well, there's 84 lettings agencies in Oldham. So this is a small town where anybody could set up their own agency, let out properties, not manage them properly. They'd be really poor condition. There'd be a focus for antisocial behavior, all on the basis that, you know, for somebody to invest in these properties and they're just bothered about getting a rate of return. I mean, my experience is Joanne Lockwood: the the private rented sector and the letting agents is everything seems to be outsourced. So they outsource the key collection. They outsource the inspections. They outsource the inventory. They outsource the maintenance. So what you're really dealing with is nice people, but they don't really have any end to end view of the tenant life. They're just pushing a button to say, well, we'll get somebody in. I think from a tenant's perspective, that leaves a lot of lack of joined up thinking in the experience. Yeah. It's not just that, Mushtaq Khan: Joe. I think it's all them incur a fee and private letting or lettings, they see many of their fees are a rip off. You know, renewal fees, sending signing tenancy agreement fees, inspection fees, all those sort of things. It is an absolute rip off. And I know some housing associations have set up their own social lettings agencies where they manage properties in the private rented sector. They've just done away with all them fees because you don't hear about them in the social event. So what was changed? Was it Joanne Lockwood: 12 to 18 months ago, wasn't it? Where there's no document fees anymore. There's no you still pay deposit. You still do a pair of referencing fee, but a lot of those renewal fees have been taken away now, haven't they? Yeah. So in the housing association, when I used to work, we had a Mushtaq Khan: social lettings agency. Jo upfront fees for the tenant. You know, none of that stuff. We we asked them for 2 weeks rent upfront so you didn't have to pay a month's deposit either. And the you know, there's a major hindrance or there's obstacles for people to get into the private rented sector. If you had a if you're a private landlord, if you gave your property to us to manage, we would manage it. And that's what housing organizations do. They manage properties. They manage tenants. And I think, you know, that is that's a social lettings agencies that are really attractive way forward. My Joanne Lockwood: naive, I suppose, view of the private housing market is or housing letting sector is that people often enter it as a profit, a pension fund rather than the social responsibility of providing someone a home is a business to them, isn't it? I think sometimes they forget about the customer which is their their less their less or less e. Mushtaq Khan: Yeah. It's a financialization of housing where people are in it for a profit. People see it as their pension fund rather than it for it's a it's a place to live for many people. I'm not saying that all landlords are bad. I think some people have a really positive experience in the private rented sector. But we know in some of the big cities and the smaller towns, the quality is poor, the management is poor. They're not looked after. And they they don't add anything to the built environment. Joanne Lockwood: I mean, I I used to work with, in my previous background working on IT, I used to work with a couple of national chains of letting agents, and I spoke to some of the franchise holders. And they were very clear that their client is the landlord. At no point does the tenant figure in anyone's mind as the client. So as far as the landlord's concerned, the less the letting agent is dealing with the client or the tenant. The the letting agent believes the landlord is their client. So who's worrying about the interests of the tenant there? And often it's not. It's the the letting agent is trying to maximize the return for themselves via fees to the landlord. Pushing up rents, index linking at 5% a year, whatever it may be, because that returns more money to the letting agent. So nobody's nobody's got the tenant's interest at heart, have they? Mushtaq Khan: No. I think that's the difference between private rented sector and the best social landlords where, having the tenant's interest at heart, making sure that tenants have a say both into the running of their home and the running of their neighborhoods is important. Yeah. But I think you're right. You Joanne Lockwood: said it earlier on that there's this UK perception that owning is best, whether that was developed in the glory days of Mackey Thatcher pushing everybody for ownership. But but not only around home, it seems as a stigma or something. Yeah. And Mushtaq Khan: I think you I would go back to the 19 eighties and the Thatcher government. One of their flagship policies was giving council tenants the right to buy their homes. I've got nothing against that, but those homes were never replaced. There was a windfall for the windfall for those people who bought those properties straight away, and we know that probably a third or more than a third of those x right to buy properties end up back in the private rented sector at extortionate rent. So and if those people on housing benefit were actually paying, you know, the state is paying for those those those benefits now. You know, they're paid they're paying for that rent. So on the long term, it's never worked out for the state, and you've had an enormous loss of affordable housing, which, you know, plays itself out in society at the moment. So it was a good thing at the time. And, you know, I know, for example, is it Scotland or Wales one of to have a stop the right to buy it, you know, because they just feel that it's a it's a an asset to the community which has been privatized, and it does no good whatsoever for their local communities. Joanne Lockwood: So you talk about the the ethical side of social housing. What's that look like? What's what what what are the what are the good good parts of that? So I think well, I've Mushtaq Khan: worked most of my life in the housing sector, And I've worked with social landlords, both local authority and housing association. And I think that the housing organizations have 2 functions. 1 of all is what first of all is to be the best possible landlord. So it's getting the basics right in terms of property condition, repairs, collection of rents, turnaround of properties, making sure that the neighborhoods are up to standards. But the secondly the second part of being a good landlord is being a a community anchor, which is ensuring that your residents and your neighborhoods can improve their life in terms of potential, in terms of access to work, access to educational opportunities, and access to having a better social environment around them. So I think there's 2 there's 2 functions for for housing organizations. And I think, sadly, some of them just do the core landlord functions and build new houses, some of which aren't affordable. I think housing organizations should help regenerate the communities that they're working. And I completely Joanne Lockwood: agree. When I when I you're the CEO of the Housing Diversity Network and I believe you also sit in the board of of 1 or some housing associations yourself, have spent, as you just said, a long time in the housing sector or the social housing sector. Are social housing companies also leaning towards profit before before tenant in some cases? Mushtaq Khan: Well, they won't say profit. They'll say that they want they're all not for profit organizations. They do have some for profit off you subsidies. I think the focus over the last 10 or so years has been on new build because the government is pushing them to build new houses because we the you know, everybody recognizes a housing shortage. I think in the push for new houses, they have moved away from their core purpose, which is regenerating communities. I think the best housing association was set up in the sixties as small locally based ventures to help local communities improve housing conditions. And they've just grown to be massive organizations now, and they like doing the core landlord bit because, you know, that's what they feel is of of port important to them. They have call centers. They have text for rent arrears. You know, they've gone away from the face to face contact and in the drive for new homes, and they save everything just so they can build new houses. I'd like organizations to to do both. And I think, you know, losing that local community impact, local community connection is something that, you know, is important to us. And at the diversity network, we've got an accreditation scheme, which doesn't just look at the, how many houses you build. It looks at your wider community purpose. It looks at your business impact. It looks at how much social investment you've done. And I think that's just as important for me. Mhmm. Because there there's two sides to Joanne Lockwood: a housing association with tenant. There's the affordable housing for key workers, nurses, doctors, firefighters, police, whoever that may be. There's also the lifeline housing for people who are on benefits or don't have access to credit ratings or whatever that may be. Do you think some housing associations are prioritizing the key worker affordable homes rather than the baseline social impact housing? I think I think Jo. Certainly in London. Mushtaq Khan: I think, you know, London's got a particular housing crisis. Key workers can't afford to live there, but they have affordable housing and then there's a even the affordable housing, there's a push for shared ownership rather than truly affordable rented housing. To me, yeah, housing house is affordable if you're spending probably a third of your income on rent. So you you just look at the average wage in a particular area and say, look, if a third of your wages on rent, then that is affordable. The government defines affordable housing as 80% of what the market charges, which is far in excess of what I would class as truly affordable. And just going back to your earlier point, I would like housing social housing was set up for anybody, and you didn't have to be on benefits or, you know, in the twilight of your years needing sheltered accommodation. It was set up for anybody. And you were meant to have doctors miss mixing with laborers and having truly mixed communities. And you're right in that we moved away. And there's a stigma attached to social housing, and there was a concept in the nineties and early 2000 having sink estates where people were dumped because nobody else would have them. They'd been through the homelessness route, and they were just dumped on particular areas. And that led to a real downward spiral in those areas. And, you know, I'm a great advocate of having mixed sustainable communities with people from all walks of life living together. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Because this shared ownership is is not the panacea it reports to be because it's it's not any more affordable than the renting. Is it because a shared ownership resident is seen to be more likely to care about the property and the environment because they have a stake in it. Is this the bias against people who are tenants as being more like to commit antisocial behaviors, more like to be the wrong sort? Is that the bias that's created? I'm Mushtaq Khan: sure it's the bias. I'm sure it's the emphasis that we've had on your home. Is it your home, your castle? What's the phrase? Is it like your an Englishman's home is his castle? And that's you know, if they if there's an emphasis on homeownership, and it's just being pushed over years years. But we know that over recent years, homeownership has declined because the generation that's coming up now to the stage where they are moving into their own accommodation simply cannot afford to buy. You know, law in large swathes of the country on the wages that they're on, they simply cannot afford to buy properties in those areas. So I think there's a real imperative to have a major house building program, but we're never gonna get there, you know, not without a major sea change. I remember probably was it 2000 early 2000s, Kate Barker, an economist, did a report on the state of the housing market. And she said one of the reasons why, housing was housing market was in the state which is in is the developers onto onto the table that there wasn't, it wasn't to do with planning, which is is always trotted out. You know, planning is behind it, planning regulation. And people did people want new houses, but they don't want them next door to them, they don't want them in their own backyard. Joanne Lockwood: And there's a massive, you know, housing estate not far from where I live, it's called Burwood in Walkleyville. And I don't know how many houses are on the entire state. And there's obviously a balance between affordable, social, and private. But they've been crammed in and I dare say that the the social housing and the affordable housing, you can just tell the difference in stock is crammed in. I would be bothered to get an ambulance of a fire engine through those streets at night where the the cars are packed tight. There's no garages, no driveways, often 1 and a half car widths wide, which means everyone's on the curbs. It means that you've got 0 access for people with wheelchairs or pushchairs. And it's actually a nightmare to get out of there. I mean, I remember getting lost trying to find my way out. This is like 15, 20 minutes. So they're quite dark, what's that? Because there's not a lot of light coming in because it's built up, creating this sort of like shadow on the streets and it just worries me that we're building these estates now and packing people in in in the guys that's not being high rise but still suffering that high rise mentality where everything's crammed together. There's no room to breathe. Yes, there are parks, greenery every so often. But it just seems like a fault with kind of future social problems that are gonna develop. Yeah. Ted Wright. Again, in Mushtaq Khan: a tower block with they're called pore doors in that you've got 2 different entrances. You've got a really nice tower block, and the plush entrance is for people who bought their houses around the back overlooking the, you know, the the bad views, overlooking the poor parts of town are is the affordable housing, which is, you know, let through a housing association. And the people who live in those properties don't have access to the to the gym or the car park, and they Jo in through the poor door around the corner. And that's what they were called. I mean, you know, there's some major issues around how these developments are constructed and local authorities, I think, need to be a lot stronger, and should have a lot more, weight in that the emphasis that they placed. And, you know, these places should be indistinguishable from each other. Joanne Lockwood: Again, is that the bias against the people who are in the poor end of society, people who don't come from the same privileged background. There's a perception they're going to be causing trouble, noise, drugs, violence, etcetera, etcetera. So this is the bias that's playing out again, pushing some people down lower and raising some people higher. Yeah. Would would you say that's unconscious Mushtaq Khan: bias or some conscious bias or a mixture of both? Joanne Lockwood: It's definitely bias. I I think it's probably commercial bias mixed with unconscious bias. I think there's a is the is this conscious about the their perception or the perception may be unconscious, but they're conscious about enacting on it. So I think there is some business marketing was going on there. Mushtaq Khan: And there's always been discrimination in the housing market going back to the 19 fifties and the no black blacks dogs or Irish. They used to go up, you know, in many proxies. And, you know, the Commission For Racial Equality in the eighties, serving notices on local authorities nondiscrimination notice on local authorities saying, look, you're rehousing people in particular areas. You shouldn't be doing that. So I think there's a long history of discrimination in housing, and it still plays itself out to this day. But Joanne Lockwood: that fuels societal problems in the future again as as we know. It creates hotbeds of tension, hotbeds of frustration, which erupts. And it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, doesn't it? The These people are going to cause trouble therefore they do because of the frustrations that amount and it's one person, it's always history is written by the victors. So one person's right is another person's social justice or shouting out for what's right. And too often, we don't listen to the people who are asking for basic human rights, basic being listened to, basic services, and we just brand them as troublemakers and that's that seems to be happening time and time again. Yeah. I'm a great Mushtaq Khan: proponent of having a housing market that's fair for everybody. We know that certain groups are disadvantaged in the housing market. For example, a third of people who are homeless are from a black and minority ethnic background, which is far in excess of the population as a whole. And homelessness in England is a legal term in that you've got to you can only be declared homeless by a local authority, so you've got to go and present yourself to the local authority to carry out an assessment. So there's a whole load of people who are hidden homeless, who are sofa surfers, who don't know the system, who can never, you know, Joanne access things. So, you know, the housing market itself is a is an unfair market, and it has been for many years. And things are coming to coming to a head. People think, for example, rough sleeping is what homelessness is. It isn't homelessness households or people, you know, somewhat wider definition, people who haven't got access to an affordable place where they can live. You know? And we solved it at the beginning of the pandemic by putting everybody who was out on the streets in in a hotel because we thought that they were gonna they were gonna transmit the virus. But we're back now to having homelessness be homeless people on the streets. But it's just the it's like the iceberg. You only just see the the visible bit. There's a whole, you know, 9 tenths of the problem is between the water below the waterline. Joanne Lockwood: And you said right about we managed to solve the the rough sleeping problem fairly quickly before realizing actually living outside in the fresh air was probably least risk sticking with that. Stick him in a or Lockwood him. In fact, what we did was we locked him into hotel rooms and wouldn't even let them leave their room. And these people have been used to living in their own community with their friends. Many, I believe, many would describe themselves as homeless. They had a home. It just didn't have a roof on it. They had a community. They had friends. They had a network. Because then when we typically stuck in hotel rooms and expected them to be grateful. And what what we did was we stripped to the the dignity and freedoms under the guise of looking after them without really asking them what they wanted. I think that's a typical government, isn't it? We use this big mallet to hammer this small nail without actually talking to the people. I think we've we haven't we haven't actually fixed the problem, have we? No. I mean, people said that homelessness is Mushtaq Khan: unsolvable. They were that they were you'll always have homeless people. We did solve it. We we solved it in 10 days. We don't have, you know, we don't have 3 year, 5 year rough sleeping strategies. It was solved straight away by finding people who are out on the streets' accommodation. But like you say, that accommodation needs to be provided with some real intensive support because people who are out on the streets have, you know, multiple issues, you know, massive mental health issues, for example, that need to be really explored and worked through with those people so they don't go back out onto the streets. But sadly, we're back into that situation now. Joanne Lockwood: So things like yeah. Food banks will be seeing the rise of these of those throughout the pandemic. More people fall into poverty. If it wasn't for the amnesty on evictions, there'd be thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people evicted by now. And that's bubbling up, isn't it? It's gonna it's gonna that bowel pressure is gonna happen. We've got normalization of things like food Mushtaq Khan: banks. I don't remember food banks before 2010, and I worked in some of the poorest parts of the country. We think it's normal now. We have MPs going to food banks. And opening food banks is just I just think it's horrific, the state that we've got into where we normalize things which were unimaginable 10 or 12 years ago. Yeah. Joanne Lockwood: When we do our weekly shopping, we always have one bag for somebody else. And we'll we'll shop and put put things in there that we would appreciate. Maybe not the usual Joanne beans and other we put toiletries, sanitary products into that and know that to make not everyone thinks about. And we make a very conscious effort to to deposit that. We wouldn't have done that, as you say, 10 years ago. No. The state has withdrawn from its Mushtaq Khan: responsibilities for providing for everybody. You know? And it's now gone into loans loans and benefits sanctions and things like that, which are unimaginable 10 or 12 years ago. And you know, like I said, I never remember food banks, never when I was growing up, never when, you know, I was working in in some really disadvantaged areas, and now it's a normal part of society. Yeah. I'm I'm I'm not an Joanne Lockwood: expert on the types of benefit people can claim, but I'm I'm aware that there's so much means testing, so much believability testing. Are you are you really incapacitated enough? Are you really disabled enough? Are you really unable to work enough? Of course, human nature is you're trying to create the best impression of yourself all the time and you've almost gotta create the worst impression of yourself in these situations because if you can walk from a to b, you're deemed to be able to walk. Yes. It's frightening what happened. By the way, that wasn't my fault. I don't know whether you Mushtaq Khan: heard it. No. No. I didn't hear it. It's alright. Joanne Lockwood: No worries. I've had I've had people's numbers phone them up on on the podcast, so don't worry. It's used to used to working in a in a COVID COVID friendly situation here. So I was saying that what was I saying? I was talking about I've lost my thread there. Well, I completely forgot what was going on. He was talking about normalization of feedbacks, benefits, options. Yeah. The term benefits is, you know, the means testing. Was it incapacity benefit, independence payments, they're all so linked. So many people have been denied access. This not only impacts their ability to stay in a in a home they have, but also feed the family, heat. So many conflicting priorities going on in people's lives these days, isn't it? Just just to survive. Yeah. I think the benefit system always reminds me of the insurance Mushtaq Khan: system. It's designed to make sure that you get as little as you possibly can with the most amount of effort. You know, probably I'm an advocate of a universal benefit for everybody, whether they're working or not, just to do away with some of the stigma and to make sure that everybody can have a reasonable standard of living. I think in the future as work more and more work gets automated, it might be something that we as a society we move we move towards. Joanne Lockwood: Well, there's a quick book I read. Rook and Brickman is Utopia for Realists. I don't know if you've ever read it, but he discusses all about UBI, universal policing income Joanne he poses thought that rich people have squandered far more money than someone who is considered poor will ever do. Jo, yet we associate people who are poor as being untrustworthy, incapable of managing money. So they're incapable of managing money, they don't have money to manage with. Money is always trying to work out the next priority, survival. Whereas when you have lots of money, you'll squander on luxuries, non essential items, etcetera, etcetera. So you care less about money the more you have. So by empowering people with UBI, we're actually creating an environment where people can start to think about tomorrow, next week, the week after, rather than thinking about this afternoon, how am I gonna feed my kids when they go home to school? That's the challenge of getting people out of poverty or onto onto a universal basic income level where we they know that they they can actually start planning what's gonna happen. And 0 contracts don't help because people can't plan around those. Gig workers, yes, I know it suits some, but it doesn't suit everybody and it was causing situations where people just can't plan their lives. They can't save their rent. They can't pay their children. They can't put shoes on on their feet because they can't plan where their money is gonna come from. And that's that really is kind of, you know, if you think about the elements of mental health, it's being able to have agency and plan. If you can't do that, that it really impacts your ability to function as a human being. Absolutely right. I Mushtaq Khan: think it's it's an important debate and one that we we're suddenly not having at the moment even as we're coming out of a pandemic. You know, how are things gonna be different for us in the future? I mean, a universal UBI, universal basic income is really important, I think, as part of that. Joanne Lockwood: But we don't see any political party, whatever whatever side of the spectrum you're on, really talking about this problem, whether it's UBI or whether it's really tackling social housing, housing, affordability. No one's really looking at this, are they? It's all around national health. It's the big political at the start guys we always get is NHS. Aren't they wonderful? We've got to protect the NHS. What about Yeah. The people? I think Mushtaq Khan: housing has been described as always the dog that doesn't bark during election campaigns. People talk about it, but it never comes up as some major policy other than an emphasis on homeownership. I think increasingly, though, people have recognized the seriousness of the housing crisis, the lack of suitable affordable housing for far too many people. And I think as time goes on, it'll become more and more of an issue because the NHS and housing are in strict what's the word, in pricibly? How do you say it? Precisely linked. Precisely linked. Yeah. That's Yeah. In that, if you have a decent, secure affordable home, it affects your mental health, it affects your physical health and your overall well-being. And I think it's really important to have, you know, housing that is suitable and affordable and have a really good standard so that you can lessen the expenditure on all the services. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Well, we've also seen in the last 12, 14 months, the magic money tree that suddenly sprung up to plow into COVID had a fraction of that being plowed into UBI, a lot of the problems we have in society wouldn't just wouldn't be there, would they? We wouldn't have this we wouldn't have had to have the job support scheme. We wouldn't have had to have some of the other schemes we had because the basic UBI would have been there, meaning nobody was gonna fall through those cracks rather than having to invent something on the fly. And then as soon as it's working, pull it away again and just pull that rug out. Or you could have invested swimmer in Mushtaq Khan: housing because COVID is a disease of the poor. You know, if you live in poor quality accommodation, you've got no outdoor space. You may be overcrowded in your own accommodation. You know, your health is poor so that you can't actually go out and exercise and those sort of things, and you've been locked down for the past 12 months. And, you know, I've come across people who've never left their house since last March. I think, you know, investment in housing that should, you know, should have been a critical part of any post COVID recovery? Joanne Lockwood: I I found that myself. I I work from home during the the lockdown periods. The only reason I was going out was shopping, and most of the time we were shopping online. When it was wet and windy, I wasn't going out getting exercise. I found myself getting kind of more institutionalized, more like a caged polar bear. I was wandering around my 10 square meters of property that I had. I found my own mental health suffering and as a result of that, the NHS are very focused on this term, PJ paralysis. The longer you spend in your pajamas when you're in the hospital, over the age of, I think it's 60 or 70, every day can knock a week off of your life sort of thing. So if you're spending weeks weeks in there, your outcome when you leave hospital having spent all that time laying in bed, your muscles atrophy, your your your whole well-being suffers. So we've got to keep people active, you know. I mean, you said at the beginning that you're still playing football and tennis and recently given up cricket. But I've learned the importance of the last 14 months to be more active because I feel myself as a 56 year old starting to realize that if I don't, in 5 years time, my health will suffer badly if I suppose. Mushtaq Khan: Yeah. I don't disagree. It's it's really important that people are active and that we have communities and spaces where people can be active. And, you know, it's again if you're middle class, you've got sharp elbows, you get the best deal in everything. And I just think, you know, many of the poor communities have been poorer communities have been left behind in this pandemic, and it has exasperated major inequalities in society. Joanne Lockwood: We're now focusing on sustainability, environmental. Again, is this about the the richer, more privileged you are, the sharper hours you have? I get it. I gotta be living in cleaner environments. Can some of the less buy off people in society afford to electrify their cars? Can they afford charging points? Can they afford whatever it may be? Well, again, we'll see this massive divide between houses that are for the future and houses that are just legacy and not being invested in? Yeah. I Mushtaq Khan: think houses and neighborhoods need to be sustainable. Sustainable in terms of the property itself, but the surrounding area, open space, health facilities, education facilities, transport is a major issue as well. I always remember going back to 2010 when the last labor government introduced the equalities act, and they had 9 protective characteristics. And I've always thought that there should be a 10th protective characteristic, which is class, and that public organizations should take into account their decisions, the the effect that it has on different neighborhoods and different social classes because I think we would have a very different world if a local authority would, for example, would have to think about transport and health in terms of class rather than in terms of ethnicity and disability. In many respects, I think class is the biggest determinant of whether you succeed in life rather than any of the other characteristics. Yeah. For sure. Joanne Lockwood: And and class is made up a whole load of different dimensions, isn't it? It's not just the class you're born into, but it's a lot of it today the more modern definition of class is your educational achievement, your your first Jo, if you like, or what size family you came from, what size family you're in. There's all the dynamics about your earning potential that comes into class these days. I think there's Jo many nouveau riche and internet millionaires that have come from nowhere and footballers, etcetera. So there's the old the old definition of class is kind of well, we need to redefine what do we mean by class, I suppose. Yeah. I mean, Mushtaq Khan: when I was studying it, it was a, b, c one, c two, d and e. You know, your social classes were defined by a social scientist as one of the the job you know, it's about your job the job market. I think the job market has changed so much. You probably got a lot of people at the top and a load of people at the bottom and less so in the middle. And maybe the biggest divider in society is age, education, leave and remain. You know? You know, the the the way that you look at divisions in society are very different now. And you can predict people's behavior based on whether they graduate or not, whether they voted leave or whether they voted remain. You know? There's there's just different ways of looking at society. I mean, David Goodhart talks about, the these somewheres, anywheres, and in between us. You know? People, you know, it classifies people differently. It's a fascinating subject. I'm not sure what the best way of looking at it is, but you've got to look at things in a different way now when when it comes to class and, you know, definitions of classes is is an important area that we need to think about. Joanne Lockwood: I think you're right about the in betweeners because often those are the ones that fit nowhere. If you're proud working class in a community, you've often got a support network around your local community. As you say, if you're upper class working class, you have somewhere to reside. But if you're kind of in this lost class, where is your tribe? Where are the people who will support you? There are people who understand you. Those are the people sometimes getting they have holes in the cracks where it's people who have traditionally been safe, secured you know, in work, but their wages aren't keeping pace with their cost of living, they're falling further and further behind, they're getting into debt, credit cards are mounting, payday loans, etcetera, etcetera. Those people are really struggling. And they're one bad decision around being hopeless on there and that's some of the trouble we face. Mushtaq Khan: Yeah. It's a really fascinating area, and I think, society as a whole needs to pay more attention to, you you know, the impact of major public decisions on, you know, people from different backgrounds and not have a one size fits all approach. Joanne Lockwood: You mentioned Brexit remained just then. Do you think there's gonna be yet more division in society around those people who perceive themselves to be British and those who are perceived to be not British, whatever that may mean? Are we gonna see xenophobic type rise or do you think society will survive this? So I Mushtaq Khan: in 2000, I spent a lot of time working in Oldham, like I mentioned previously, which is a segregated town, different communities living in different parts of town. And there were riots there in 2,001 which, you know, I'm not sure the town has has recovered from, but, you know, it's making great strides. And a lot of the work that we did in the housing sector was about dispelling myths and trying to bring communities together. And I think, sadly, over the last year or 2, we've not done as much work as a society about looking at what we have in common and what brings us together. It's mostly been around division and divide and Joanne us and them. And I think as a society or as a political class, that has played well. And it's, you know, I think at the heart of much of the work that housing organization should be doing was around cohesion and about bringing people together and recognizing and talking about our differences. There's a really good project in Sheffield called who is my neighbor who we had on one of our housing diversity network webinars who's who Jo and talk to people in neighborhoods about the change that is occurring and how they feel about it. And they often feel that's the first time anybody's ever talked to them. You know? And the first time that they've managed to, you know, listen to what their fears are about the pace of change, about the things that are happening in their local area and how it affects them. And I think we've not done that as a society. You know, it plays well to certain elements of the political class to keep that going, to keep that divide and rule going because, you know, for example, older home owning people are more likely to work to vote in a particular direction? Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I mean, that's some of the work I'm I'm doing with the Housing Diverse Network and, yeah, the work we're doing together is that very much around the community focus. I think what you picked out there, people often just want to be listened to, But in order to be listened to, you've got to find them. You've got to reach out and locate the people and then make time for them because too often we we create a stereotype. We just look people and say, oh, we'll assume they all think this, but we often don't really go and talk to individual communities. People in the communities understand their needs and struggles. Obviously in the conversations I've had with the housing associations who are very progressive, very well meaning and trying to do the right thing is they often don't hear everybody. And I think the example you talked about at the beginning was the digitalization of service, the online payment methods that really recognize that some of the people who are most struggling in society don't have access to what we treat now as the norm. I had to get one of my relatives to sign a document the other day and they don't have Internet at home, they don't have a laptop, they've got a phone and that just about catch the Internet. So when someone glibly said, oh, just get get to sign the PDF just and then send it back. He's like, I must have been talking Irish or Spanish or Portuguese or something to my relative and they wanted it printed out. Of course, I don't have a printer, they don't have a printer and the organization that was sending it didn't really understand what the trouble was. Jo again, it's a disconnect between people who are not digital or not thinking like you do and creating these services that are accessible. And that's that's some of the challenge that we we often forget about. Yeah. Mushtaq Khan: And it's another one of the divides, the digital divide as well between people who are familiar with the new ways of working and those who who aren't and, you know, aren't familiar and have never embraced some of the new ways that we work. Joanne Lockwood: Well, it's been amazing. We've been chatting for almost an hour. So do you wanna tell us a little bit more about the work you do at Housing Diversity Network and if you're anybody out there who's in the housing sector, what services do you offer and how can you help? So very briefly, Housing Diversity Mushtaq Khan: Network is a not for profit. We work in probably 4 main areas, leadership and governance. We do a lot of work with exec teams and boards to make the organization more inclusive. There's been an enormous focus about making boards more diverse. And we've been really concentrating on that over the past 12 months. We do a lot of workforce development too, everything from training to having mentoring program. We've got a flagship staff mentoring program for people who want to move on in their careers, who are just stuck. And most of the people on our mentoring programs are women or people from minority backgrounds. And we also do some work on services to the community, you know, making sure that you work, you listen to the communities, and are responsive to their needs. And we have an accreditation program as well, which is a bit like what used to be called the audit commission used to come in and inspect organizations, come to a judgment based on the evidence that you've got. And the accreditation program that we have has really picked up for housing organizations because they just see us laying down a marker saying, look, this is where we are in terms of equality and diversity and inclusion, and this is what we want to do next. Jo Housing Diversity Network is a membership organization too. Our membership has grown a lot over the last 12 months. We want to continue we we want to continue growing and provide services across the sector. Excellent. Joanne Lockwood: And you mentioned about the housing, the board diversity program. I mean, I've had some experience. There's a real push now to become more representative of the communities, which I'm sure you'd agree is really, really important for this listening and being relevant again, isn't it? Yes. So we Mushtaq Khan: know that housing association boards tend to be on the older side, people who are tired and have got skills in the areas of risk or financial management. And they don't reflect the communities that they serve. Sometimes there's groupthink. They're not as close to the community. They're not aware of new developments. And our board diversity programs that we have are help with recruitment and help with succession planning because you can't magic up a diverse board overnight. Sometimes you've got to go out and recruit some people as trainees Jo that in the the next 12 to 18 months, they're in a position to apply for vacancies as and when they occur. So board diversity is critically important if you want to be a growing and thriving organization in today's world. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And that's not just housing associations. It's NHS Trust, CCGs. We know the Ned market and the specialists who do a lot of these these work are portfolio holders, and they tend to be, as you say, a typical type of person, often older, often retired, often had a certain background. And I think it's really important for the growth of services in all sectors to think about bringing in people who are have different lived experience and invest in the training because a lot of the requirement to be a a net or a non executive director is you tend to have to have had a portfolio or opportunity in the past. Again, that's excluding people who don't necessarily have a depreciation of the Companies Act, who don't have unsettled governance risk and how do you become your first how do you bring your first portfolio in until you've had one start. So I I think it's critically important if we don't tap into people from minority underrepresented communities to provide them that pathway. Yeah. I'll be interested in your views on Mushtaq Khan: this, Jo, because you've been work hand holding a housing organization right from the beginning of the process so that they Joanne, get a more diverse intake into that board. How how have you found that? What have you had to do to help them along the way? Well, it's been a couple of times where Joanne Lockwood: it's almost like this nervousness of we must have this, this is avatar of the person they want and it's really hard to break that mold and say imagine that this person was completely different to what you're thinking. And you can almost see them like there's a quiver of fear, letting someone different onto the board. And I even and I even challenged them. I said, Jo what would it look like if this person didn't speak English as a first language Joanne you had to provide an interpreter at the board meeting? And there was this, again, this kind of like, well, that wouldn't work, we need to better, so if you couldn't think about true diversity, true representation of your community, There's somebody who may not speak English as the first language, in which case, you shouldn't discriminate or pull them out because of that. And how do we work, make that reasonable adjustment the way around it? Or if you always hold your board meetings at 10 o'clock on a Tuesday, you may be limiting the access to younger parents or single parents who can't tell at times. So how do you how do you bring those people into it? But this is real resistance of but then once you once you talk and you spend time explaining how this could work, it starts to soften and starts to melt. But there's there's still this this comfort blanket of the CV, this comfort blanket of a track record, this comfort blanking of hitting the ground running. If you've got a board of often 13 or 14 people, most of the key compliance and governance box are being ticked already. Your main committees are already being resourced. So you've got the opportunity to bring people in really just for their perspective and then bring them onto the committee, then bring them into other roles. As you said, the trainee, the apprentice, Ned, whatever you wanna describe the role. That's what we need to do is we need to bring people and let them believe that it is for them as well. And it's not just for the traditional, often white, often middle class, often retired face in the room. Mushtaq Khan: Yeah. We're doing some work with a cooperative, which is the purest way of running a housing estate. And they have got we're doing some board development work with them. They've got 8 people who are coming on the program. And 2 of those, their English is very poor, but they're a vital component of the management of that estate. So we've got to think through how can we do some board development, which is personal development as well as attending some workshops. And we can make it as inclusive so that those people can attend and get the best out of it. But, you know, those 2 people whose English isn't as good actually add a lot to the management of that cooperative. Oh, one of the challenges I've Joanne Lockwood: I've heard when I speak to some of housing associations and their teams is that it's really hard to get resident engagement. Not everybody wants to be an activist, not everybody wants to give their time up. They just want a house, they just want a home, they just want to live. And so sometimes we're asking too much of people, where people really just don't expect to be asked that question. You don't go into your bank and they say, do you want to come on the committee? Do you want to come and talk about the service you've had today? Do you want to be a part of a feedback group? So the housing associations need to develop a way of involving themselves in the communities and reaching out in a way that works, not expecting the residents to come to them all the time. And that could be door to door knocking, sitting down, having a chat, more 1 to 1 sessions, and just putting more time and effort to find out what people are really thinking. Mushtaq Khan: Yeah. We've all been there. We've all been 7:30 on a wet Tuesday night in a committee room where most people want to be watching Coronation Street, but we've dragged them along to a committee meeting. Again, you've got, you know, average age of the people in there is probably about 72. They're not representative of the tenant base. Our our views are that you should be using techniques like yourself, like you said yourself. Door knocking, you should be incentivizing people to attend. You should be using Facebook and social media to get feedback. You know, there are different ways of doing it rather than the standard committee room model. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Yeah. Which appeals to the parish council type mentality or the the people who like that traditional old school meeting. But many people got anxiety about speaking in public. They've got, they've got commitments. They can't give out the time. So, yeah, it's completely as I the expression I love is when people are hard to reach, you have to reach harder. I think that applies to so many cases, And that's customer engagement is is exactly that, reach harder if you're not hearing from people. Well, that's our that's our hour and a bit. Well done. Brilliant. Thank you. I really really love the conversation. I hope I didn't come across as muddled Mushtaq Khan: in some ways. Sometimes I'm just thinking ahead of what I'm saying, you see. No. I thought you were fantastic. Joanne Lockwood: Hopefully, our listeners, thank you for tuning in. Thank you for listening. Please do subscribe to keep updated on future episodes of the Inclusion Bites podcast at B-I-T-E-S. Tell your friends and colleagues, I've got a number of other exciting guests lined up that I'm sure you'll be equally inspired by over the next few weeks months. And, of course, if you'd love to be a guest, then please do let me know. And I'm always open for feedback and suggestions to jo.lockwoodchangehappen.co.uk. Tell me how can I improve, tell me what you'd like to hear from? Oh, absolute pleasure. My name is Joanne Lockwood and it's been awesome and a pleasure to host this podcast for you today. Catch you next time. Bye.