Choice-based Lettings, Social Landlords and Equitable Housing Outcomes: Structure, Agency and Reflexivity

Developed from the Delft model, Choice Based Lettings systems (CBL), have been extensively adopted by social landlords for allocating housing in the UK. Despite the purported neutrality and customer orientation of the service, its implementation appears to perpetuate existing ethnic disparities by increasing the concentration of minoritised ethnic (ME) communities in areas of deprivation. Notably, little attention has been paid to the systems and processes of social landlords from the perspectives of individuals from ME communities who have engaged with these systems. To help fill this gap, this UKRI-funded study uses a critical realist multi-levelled governance framework to unravel the complex interplay between the structural constraints inherent in social housing and digital platforms, the racialised social processes of engaging with these systems and the scope for reflexivity and agency among ME individuals. By analysing verbal and visual data from in-depth interviews with 37 ME tenants of social housing and follow up interviews with 15 individuals as well as data from an online survey of 55 applicants from ME communities in England and Scotland, we reveal the ways in which the systems and processes of social landlords hinder engagement with CBL systems. We argue that there is considerable scope for social landlords to work in collaboration with ME communities, web developers, data scientists, service providers, and policymakers, to allow more equitable housing outcomes.