Homes for health: The impact of housing on wellbeing and resilience
This blog is our summary and key takeaways from Session 1 from the New Homes in New Ways Summit, hosted by AtkinsRéalis. Watch the Summit on our YouTube channel.
What does it feel like, physically and mentally, to live in an unsafe or insecure home?
In this session, Zoe Metcalfe, Client Director for Local and Central Government, Buildings and Places at AtkinsRéalis, Dr. William Bird, Founder and CEO of Intelligent Health, Graham Kauders, Development Director at EDAROTH and Matthew Morgan, Director and Co-Founder of the Quality of Life Foundation highlight the need to account for the social cost of the housing crisis.
Through our work at the Housing Festival, we have long been aware of the impacts of housing on health. From mould-related asthma to illnesses caused by unhygienic conditions, the anxiety and depression that can result from an impermanent living arrangement or feeling unsafe – the list feels endless. However, what struck us about this conversation was the ‘long shadow’ of health impacts that continue into later life, even after an appropriate housing solution is found, as a result of our bodies being rewired for ‘survival’ and the development of shorter telomeres.
If we’re to take the panel’s insights seriously, we are compelled to reframe what housing delivers and what problem it is solving – and work to embed health outcomes into every part of the housing delivery process.
Housing as social determinant of health
According to panellists, poor health costs the Government £42bn a year, as a conservative estimate, and if data from the wellbeing index was added, the number would be even greater. Dr. Bird stressed that it is incumbent on us all to understand the social determinants of health and how they feed into long-term outcomes for people by actively working to embed health equity and wellness into policy, planning and commissioning of new homes.
The opportunity of MMC
Offering an MMC supply chain perspective, Graham said that EDAROTH meets and exceeds every regulatory criterion for housing, and is therefore able to produce quality homes. The challenge is therefore not in product itself, but the process by which that home is funded, procured and granted planning consent. Panellists argued that the planning mindset needs to shift to better understand the role of social housing to deliver public good. A Local Development Order (LDO) or similar was suggested to help overcome this challenge, as well as greater strategic alignment between public health and planning colleagues on key outcomes for communities.
Recalibrating the economics
The panel highlighted the need to account for and measure health outcomes, and specifically the opportunity for the MMC sector and others to play their part in articulating and accounting for the health creation they are generating. Similarly they encouraged local authorities to recognise that homes are the levers to wellness, and therefore productivity. Specifically Matthew spoke about the importance of designing homes and communities for health equity. It is hoped that this will support the much-needed shift in how developments are evaluated. In the short-term, growth tends to be the driver rather than health outcomes. Recalibrating the economics is about recognising that in the long-term, productivity is linked to health and resilience, and therefore it makes sense to account for social value.
What did we leave with? Everyone in the industry can impact social inequalities and effect change. We already have a supply chain waiting to deliver quality homes at pace. Let’s keep working to ensure health outcomes and social value become embedded in our housing delivery process, so the long shadow isn’t cast on generations to come.