Abstract for: Social Housing, Sustainability, and Health: Exploring the Mental Models of Stakeholders in the Sector

The social housing sector in England faces escalating challenges, stemming from external political pressures, conflicting stakeholder priorities, and a partial understanding of the system and where to act. Discrepancies in the interpretation of key goals (i.e., sustainability, affordability, housing targets) exacerbate tensions, eroding trust within the sector. To address these issues, a greater understanding of the mental models of stakeholders is critical. Our research aims to outline the diversity of perspectives around the key issues that the social housing sector is facing in order to design strategies that holistically address them. In interviews with a range of actors across the sector, we developed thirty-eight causal loop diagrams (CLDs) around the challenges that affect social housing provision and regeneration in England and London. First analyses focused on the emerging tensions between the way sustainability and health are understood and achieved in this context. In the next steps, we aim to develop a research approach that supports the analysis of the thirty-eight CLDs, to create a dialogue between the seemingly incompatible positions of different actors and to collectively design new system structures that reconcile them.