Shifting Housing Maintenance from Asset Management to a Public Health Intervention

By Liam Gratty, Director of Strategic Services, CHIC

Health and safety within the social housing sector has long been framed as a matter of compliance; a statutory obligation to be met, evidenced and defended. Yet the homes managed within the sector are not simply assets requiring regulatory compliance, but environments that directly shape health, dignity and quality of life.

Over time, competing pressures, financial constraints, increasing demand, ageing housing stock and organisational risk management have influenced how health and safety responsibilities are interpreted in practice. Sometimes this has resulted in a culture where minimum standards are prioritised over meaningful risk reduction and where compliance can unintentionally replace professional curiosity and preventative action.

In this context, the challenge facing the sector is not a lack of regulation, guidance or technical knowledge. Rather, it lies in collective attitudes toward risk, accountability and the lived experience of residents. A genuinely health led approach to housing safety requires moving beyond reactive responses and toward a culture that recognises resident wellbeing as central to good housing management.

Understanding and addressing these attitudes is essential if social housing is to fulfil its wider role, not only as a provider of accommodation, but as a foundation for public health and social stability.

With the recent publication of the New Decent Homes Standard Policy Statement we have an opportunity to regroup and really focus on meaningful health outcomes in housing and consider how this sets a foundation for residents to live in healthy homes.