‘We need more people, we need good people and we need people who care’: Peabody’s Elly Hoult on her mission to sort housing’s future

A year ago, in a speech at the CIH’s annual presidential dinner, Ms Hoult told a personal story about how her background taught her about the hugely important role social housing plays in society.

She explained her own experience of social housing to a packed room of sector professionals. “Our home was damp, it was cold and it was overcrowded,” she said. 

“It was meant to be temporary, a relic of post-war Britain, but it had endured for decades. It had no central heating, no double-glazing and open fires.”

Everything changed when the family were moved into a new housing association home, which she associates with three words: “warm, dry, safe”.

For Ms Hoult, the move gave her something other than somewhere to live – it gave her a sense of purpose, which has never left her. The power of the story and its message lie right at the heart of Ms Hoult’s campaign and her career.

Early steps into the sector

Her early life experience might have taught her about the power of social housing, but how did Ms Hoult choose it as a career? Her journey started out in the admin team at Cherwell Housing Trust. Within weeks she was hooked.

“I was sitting next to people who worked in supported housing and within two weeks I was thinking, ‘wow, these jobs are so interesting’.”

Seeing the impact the roles could have on people’s lives, helping them to improve their outcomes, led Ms Hoult to decide there and then that she wanted to work in supported housing. “That was me choosing housing, and it was quite quick.”

Ms Hoult has never looked back. She started out as a supported housing officer when the sector was riding high, with “so much investment by the Labour government [under Tony Blair]”.

“I had a caseload of 12 residents who were what we would call ‘high needs’. I had people on probation, care leavers and people with multiple complex issues. But [being] that person that was advocating, working with them, supporting them very intensely, you could actually change people’s lives.”

It’s the complexity and the variety of working in housing that Ms Hoult feels is the big attraction of the sector, but also perhaps why it is not as widely understood as some other public service roles. And it is the long-term nature of the relationship with residents that makes it such an important job to get right.

“If you go to a nurse, it’s time-limited,” she states. “If you’ve got a teacher, you’re at school for six or eight years, the teacher has a class. A resident is with us for their entire life potentially. What that does mean is that if a resident has a bad experience, they may never change their view.

“It’s very unique, I think, in that way. It means that we need to build trust because we’re going to have a relationship with our resident for the rest of their life, and potentially [with] their children and their families.”

Attracting new talent

Ms Hoult’s direct experience of the difference the sector made advocating for people with “multiple complex issues”, along with her own family’s experience, fed directly into her campaign. The name – Choose Housing – came in a flash one Friday night watching a 1980s rerun of Top of the Pops.

“The ‘Choose Life’ t-shirts came on and I was like, ‘that’s it!’” she says.

There were a few reasons for the campaign, she explains. “One, we’ve got a skills shortage and we need more people, we need good people and we need people who care and have the same passion as most of my colleagues.”

Following on from that was the desire for social landlords to “think about what they could do to improve” recruitment to the sector. “I know lots of people are doing good things, but actually, collectively, if we can gather those stories, we can get a bit of momentum behind it.”

And then finally, in a tough environment for the sector over the preceding few years, Ms Hoult wanted to “recognise the good work that [housing professionals] do and feel proud about working in housing and sharing that passion with other people”.

Last year, Inside Housing Management launched its own Housing Management Matters campaign, talking about the important role housing management plays in communities across the UK.

Our sister title is currently looking to celebrate the vital work of housing teams across the UK and publicise the contribution they make to society, by identifying 30 employees who are doing amazing work at any level in any housing management-related role.

Please nominate your inspirational colleagues here. Hopefully it can act as one small ongoing contribution to Ms Hoult’s campaign.

Speaking of which, the whole campaign was designed to make an ongoing contribution to housing recruitment. Ms Hoult developed a toolkit to provide resources and guidance on how to raise awareness of the career opportunities that the housing sector delivers. She hopes there will be the chance for organisations to use this toolkit and to build on it now that her time as president has come to an end.

“I wanted it to be down to the individual to say, ‘I’m going to go into a school and talk about housing’.”

More broadly, “if everybody [who gets involved] can get five people to join housing, that is a lot of people”.

This passion and these personal stories are what is needed for a sector that can seem complex to people with limited experience of it, and “quite difficult to explain”.

As for the CIH presidency itself, “it was a huge privilege. It’s the opportunity to have your own personal [national] campaign, something you care about. I can’t think of any other sort of environment where you can do that.”

But she wanted to ensure it lived on beyond her presidential term. “My main concern is that it is really important that this can’t just be a year,” she says. “It can’t just drop away.”

As new president Julie Haydon’s Rooted in Resilience campaign gathers momentum, the creation of the toolkit and the wider branding means Choose Housing will live on as a brand that can be used to share stories and ideas.

“I’m always thinking about how can I improve my knowledge more [in order] to do a better job”

Ms Hoult is also deeply involved in other work that will continue its legacy, including work by the London Homes Coalition.

That coalition of partners, including seven housing associations, looked at the skills and labour shortages that threaten to impact (and already are impacting) affordable housing and repairs and maintenance delivery across the capital. Its Building Skills for the Future report came out in July 2024.

“They are different pieces of work but clearly intrinsically linked,” Ms Hoult says. Work continues as part of the coalition to look at better collective working between different partners in individual neighbourhoods, innovations that might help with delivery and further lobbying of the government.

On top of all this work, Ms Hoult has completed a master’s looking at the barriers and opportunities around ventilating homes. That research is already informing how Peabody engages with its tenants and residents on the issue.

“It probably comes back to the point about the regulator really pushing around understanding who is in your home and the home itself,” she says. “Actually, [it’s about] how we have meaningful conversations with residents about what would work for them and what would work for us.”

On the same theme, this month sees Peabody launch a new resident engagement strategy, which promises that the organisation will “listen well and act clearly” and evidence how it is working with residents to influence different areas of the organisation, whether that is procurement panels, recruitment for senior leaders or the induction of new staff.

That means those “meaningful conversations” should be taking place right across the organisation.

“I think anyone in a senior position has a duty to think about things from a sector perspective, as well as their own organisation, and what they can do to improve that,” she says. “I’m always thinking about how can I improve my knowledge more [in order] to do a better job.”

Ultimately, what it all comes back to are those values Ms Hoult grew up with. Social housing came with love, support, stability and an emphasis on giving back. It’s why Ms Hoult chose housing. It’s why her focus is very much on making sure many others will be, too.