We must face the reality on how anti-immigrant sentiment is impacting staff and residents

There is genuine fear among our colleagues and residents, and the survey tells us that people want membership bodies and individual landlords to do more to support them. I’d suggest ‘more’ includes taking a stand, communicating our anti-racist and inclusive stance with residents (not just colleagues), terminating tenancies for repeat offenders and reviewing our stakeholders.

By now I’m sure many housing providers have some questions around equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in their tender process – that’s great. How many have reviewed who their suppliers support? Donations to extremist groups are coming from somewhere – are any of them coming from our suppliers and other partners?

Did any of the people we bank with withdraw their EDI commitments last year in response to the USA doing the same? As a sector, I have no doubt we have the necessary economic power to encourage our stakeholders to subscribe to our values, but I’m not convinced we use it. 

“Raising awareness and educating people on the lived experiences of others should not only apply to our colleagues to support better service delivery, but also to our residents, to help build better communities in and around our homes”

Our estates and workplaces are a microcosm of the wider society we live in. We have people in and around us that subscribe to these abhorrent views – how we respond as a sector is what will make the difference to our people. 

One of the ways to tackle this misinformation that keeps being promoted is sharing resident stories, but I am not a fan of this approach. Should they be forced to tell their life stories and lived experiences so those questioning their right to be in a social home feel they have earned it? I don’t believe people should have to relive personal horrors to satisfy the malicious cruelty of a minority of people.

Raising awareness and educating people on the lived experiences of others should not only apply to our colleagues to support better service delivery, but also to our residents, to help build better communities in and around our homes.

We had some challenges in one of our extra-care schemes late last year where some of our older residents were being less than friendly with our non-white colleagues, mispronouncing names and being particularly offensive on occasion.

We sourced a training provider who specialises in training older people about inclusion, racism and the impact it has (yes, they do exist). They spent some time with the residents, educating them about the importance of getting people’s names right, microaggressions and their impact. Four months later, we have not had any complaints from colleagues on the scheme.

“We want our homes and workplaces to be safe spaces where people feel they be themselves without fear”

I’m not naive enough to believe we have resolved racism and changed people’s views; however, I do believe by delivering the training we have shown our residents and colleagues our commitment to anti-racism, and taken the effort to ensure our residents understand why we are an anti-racist and inclusive organisation.

The plan this year is to deliver similar training across our other schemes proactively and host some combined colleague-and-resident EDI awareness events. This is the next stage of our inclusion journey: bringing the residents along with us.

The challenge for housing providers, as always, is around the conflicting priorities – we have finite resources, and focus has to be on meeting our increasing regulatory obligations. I would argue that a safe home where people do not feel at risk due to their immigration status, religion or ethnicity should be a key priority.  

We want our homes and workplaces to be a safe space where people feel they be themselves without fear. One of the many ways we can do this is by ensuring there is no ambiguity in the sector around where we stand on being inclusive, so colleagues, residents and stakeholders all know what to expect from us and what we expect from them.

Thank you to everyone who completed the Inside Housing survey: by sharing your views, you have given us an opportunity to review and address areas we can do better.

Annalisa Langton, head of engagement and diversity, the Guinness Partnership