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Making, Unmaking, and Remaking Home in Social and
Affordable Mixed-Tenure Community Housing
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor
of Philosophy
Fiona May Carey
BSocial Work (Hons). BSocSc (Psych), RMIT University
ORCID 0009-0000-9415-0621
School of Global, Urban and Social Studies
College of Design and Social Context
RMIT University
Australia
June 2025
ii
Declaration
I certify that except where due acknowledgement has been made, this research is that of the
author alone; the content of this research submission is the result of work which has been
carried out since the official commencement date of the approved research program; any
editorial work, paid or unpaid, carried out by a third party is acknowledged; and, ethics
procedures and guidelines have been followed.
In addition, I certify that this submission contains no material previously submitted for award
of any qualification at any other university or institution, unless approved for a joint-award
with another institution, and acknowledge that no part of this work will, in the future, be used
in a submission in my name, for any other qualification in any university or other tertiary
institution without the prior approval of the University, and where applicable, any partner
institution responsible for the joint-award of this degree.
I acknowledge that copyright of any published works contained within this thesis resides with
the copyright holder(s) of those works.
I give permission for the digital version of my research submission to be made available on
the web, via the University’s digital research repository, unless permission has been granted
by the University to restrict access for a period of time.
I acknowledge the support I have received for my research through the provision of an
Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.
Fiona May Carey
26/06/2025
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Dedication
In loving memory of my grandparents – George and May.
iv
Acknowledgements
I acknowledge that this research took place on lands of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung
language groups of the Eastern Kulin Nations. My research concerned experiences of home,
and so I acknowledge the historical and ongoing dispossession and destruction of First
Nations peoples’ homes across this continent. I stand in solidarity with First Nations peoples,
whose sovereignty has never been ceded.
I acknowledge the support I have received for my research through the provision of the
RMIT Unison Scholarship.
There are many people who I would like to thank for their support during the PhD journey.
Foremost are the research participants, especially the tenant participants at the two housing
sites, who generously shared their stories with me, and enabled the research to take the shape
that it has.
I owe a huge thanks to my supervisors. To Guy Johnson for his practical and intellectual
guidance, as well for providing me with additional research opportunities throughout the
candidature that helped to develop my research capabilities. To Juliet Watson for her constant
presence throughout the entire journey, offering practical and theoretical advice and insights.
Additionally, I am eternally grateful to both Guy and Juliet for their encouragement and
emotional support during the challenges and aftermath of COVID-19 restrictions. Their belief
in my ability to complete the PhD was what kept me going during this period. And to
Kathryn Daley, whose fresh perspective, encouragement, and enthusiasm over the last year
has provided much needed motivation for the final push.
I would also like to thank friends and family, and my colleagues at Summer Foundation, who
have all provided empathy, encouragement, study leave, cat photos and memes, and other fun
distractions. In particular, Melissa and Sue, who provided many laughs and much support
during the ups and downs of life that happen during the course of a PhD. And Nicolas, who
always took time to share his wisdom and knowledge with us.
Special thanks to Elea, who, in addition to the above, also generously took the time to read
drafts and helped with editing.
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And finally, to my parents for their continued support, visits to Melbourne, and their care and
patience with my inflexible schedule.
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Table of Contents
Declaration ................................................................................................................................ ii
Dedication ................................................................................................................................ iii
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... iv
List of tables .............................................................................................................................. xi
List of figures .......................................................................................................................... xii
List of photos ......................................................................................................................... xiii
Glossary .................................................................................................................................. xiv
Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... 1
1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 3
1.1 Research summary ........................................................................................................... 3
1.1.1 Research problem ...................................................................................................... 3
1.1.2 Research questions .................................................................................................... 7
1.1.3 Theoretical approach ................................................................................................. 8
1.1.4 Research design ......................................................................................................... 9
1.2 Clarifying terminology ................................................................................................... 10
1.3 Thesis outline ................................................................................................................. 12
1.4 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 13
2. Literature review .............................................................................................................. 14
2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 14
2.2 Why mixed-tenure community housing? ....................................................................... 15
2.2.1 The problem with public housing in Australia ........................................................ 15
2.2.2 The problem with the private rental sector in Australia .......................................... 19
2.3 Diversifying the sector through community housing ..................................................... 21
2.3.1 The transfer of public stock to community housing ................................................ 21
2.3.2 Community housing and the provision of affordable rental housing ...................... 23
2.3.3 A snapshot of community housing in Victoria ........................................................ 25
2.4 Diversifying the sector through mixed-tenure housing .................................................. 30
2.4.1 Approaches to mixed-tenure housing ...................................................................... 30
2.4.2 Mixed-tenure effects and evidence .......................................................................... 33
2.4.3 Gaps in mixed-tenure research ................................................................................ 37
2.5 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 38
vii
3.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 39
3.2 Understanding home ...................................................................................................... 40
3.2.1 The value of home ................................................................................................... 40
3.2.2 Disruptions to home ................................................................................................ 41
3.2.3 Home and neighbours .............................................................................................. 42
3.2.4 Home and neighbourhood ....................................................................................... 43
3.2.5 Home and housing governance ............................................................................... 45
3.3 Ontological security ....................................................................................................... 46
3.4 Dupuis and Thorns’ ontological security framework ..................................................... 50
3.4.1 A constant social and material environment............................................................ 50
3.4.2 Establishing routines ............................................................................................... 52
3.4.3 Privacy and control .................................................................................................. 53
3.4.4 Identity construction ................................................................................................ 54
3.5 Extending the ontological security framework .............................................................. 55
3.5.1 ‘Freedom from’ and ‘freedom to’ ............................................................................ 56
3.5.2 Adaptive reactions ................................................................................................... 57
3.6 A framework of ontological security in community housing ........................................ 58
3.7 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 61
4. Research approach: A qualitative multimethod methodology ............................................. 63
4.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 63
4.2 Rationale for a qualitative multimethod approach ......................................................... 64
4.3 Research fields ............................................................................................................... 66
4.3.1 Unison Housing ....................................................................................................... 66
4.3.2 North-West Burb ..................................................................................................... 68
4.3.3 North-East Burb ....................................................................................................... 69
4.3.4 Current comparison of North-West and North-East Burbs ..................................... 71
4.3.5 Housing sites ........................................................................................................... 72
4.4 Methods .......................................................................................................................... 77
4.4.1 Document analysis ................................................................................................... 78
4.4.2 Focus groups ............................................................................................................ 79
4.4.3 Ethnographic observation ........................................................................................ 80
4.4.4 Interviews ................................................................................................................ 82
4.4.5 Data analysis ............................................................................................................ 86
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4.4.6 Limitations ............................................................................................................... 88
4.4.7 Ethics ....................................................................................................................... 90
4.5 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 91
5.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 92
5.2 Material dimensions of imaging home ........................................................................... 94
5.2.1 ‘Freedom from’ housing insecurity ......................................................................... 94
5.2.2 ‘Freedom from’ unaffordability .............................................................................. 96
5.3 Social dimensions of imagining home ........................................................................... 99
5.3.1 ‘Freedom from’ social risk ...................................................................................... 99
5.4 Governing dimensions of imagining home .................................................................. 103
5.4.1 Sustaining tenancies to remain ‘free from’ housing insecurity ............................. 103
5.4.2 Preventative approaches to tenancy sustainment................................................... 105
5.4.3 Responding to breaches to sustain tenancies ......................................................... 108
5.5 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 113
6. Making and maintaining home: ‘Freedom to’ actively make home .................................. 115
6.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 115
6.2 Material dimensions of homemaking ........................................................................... 116
6.2.1 ‘Freedom to’ establish routines in the neighbourhood .......................................... 116
6.2.2 ‘Freedom to’ personalise space ............................................................................. 121
6.3 Social dimensions of homemaking .............................................................................. 125
6.3.1 ‘Freedom to’ have relationships of choice ............................................................ 125
6.3.2 ‘Freedom to’ have pets as family .......................................................................... 128
6.3.3 ‘Freedom to’ engage in neighbouring practices .................................................... 130
6.4 Governing dimensions of homemaking ....................................................................... 136
6.4.1 Governing practices to support homemaking ........................................................ 136
6.4.2 Mechanisms that support homemaking ................................................................. 139
6.5 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 144
7. Unmaking home at North-East and North-West Burbs ..................................................... 146
7.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 146
7.2 Material dimensions of unmaking of home .................................................................. 147
7.2.1 Intrusions of home boundaries .............................................................................. 147
7.2.2 Material disorder at North-West Burb ................................................................... 153
7.2.3 Unmet expectations: Responses to material disorder at North-West Burb ........... 156
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7.3. Social dimensions unmaking of home ........................................................................ 159
7.3.1 Social disorder by visitors at North-West Burb .................................................... 159
7.3.2 Racism ................................................................................................................... 164
7.4 Governing dimensions of unmaking home .................................................................. 166
7.4.1 Tenancy allocations ............................................................................................... 166
7.4.2 Tenant evictions ..................................................................................................... 169
7.5 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 172
8. Remaking home: Practices to minimise the impact of ontological insecurity ................... 174
8.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 174
8.2 Remaking home through emotional and social practices ............................................. 175
8.2.1 Detached acceptance.............................................................................................. 175
8.2.2 Expressing optimism ............................................................................................. 180
8.2.3 Distancing from stigma ......................................................................................... 182
8.2.4 Social self-sanctioning ........................................................................................... 186
8.3 Remaking home through housing governance ............................................................. 188
8.4 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 192
9. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 194
9.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 194
9.2 Community housing in Australia: Revisiting the research problem ............................ 195
9.3 Theoretical contributions .............................................................................................. 197
9.4 Empirical contributions ................................................................................................ 199
9.4.1 Four experiences of home in community housing................................................. 199
9.4.2 The value of home in community housing ............................................................ 202
9.4.3 Factors informing home in community housing ................................................... 203
9.5 Research implications for the community housing sector ........................................... 205
9.6 Future directions ........................................................................................................... 207
9.7 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 209
References .............................................................................................................................. 210
Appendix A: Staff participant information and consent form ............................................... 245
Appendix B: Place-manager focus group guide ................................................................... 250
Appendix C: Executive focus group guide ............................................................................ 253
Appendix D: Tenant participant information and consent form ............................................ 254
Appendix E: Observational fieldnote template ...................................................................... 257
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Appendix F: Photo information sheet .................................................................................... 258
Appendix G: Tenant interview guide ..................................................................................... 260
Appendix H: Ethics approval ................................................................................................. 262
Appendix I: Anti-social behaviours and breaching policy .................................................... 264
Appendix J: Anti-social behaviours and breaching procedure .............................................. 267
Appendix K: Allocation policy .............................................................................................. 276
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List of tables
Table 1 Number of social housing dwellings in Victoria in 2005 and 2023 ......................... 34
Table 2 Suburb, state, and national population demographic data ........................................ 79
Table 3 Property comparison by dwelling size and tenancy type .......................................... 82
Table 4 Primary tenant demographic comparison by property and tenancy type .................. 83
Table 5 Tenant participant biographies at North-East and North-West Burbs ...................... 90
xii
List of figures
Figure 1 Framework of ontological security in community housing .................................... 66
Figure 2 Map of North-East Burb ......................................................................................... 81
Figure 3 Map of North-West Burb........................................................................................ 81
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List of photos
Photo 6.1– A possum on the fence of Robert’s backyard ...................................................... 120
Photo 6.2 – Robert’s backyard with pots, a garden bed, and furniture .................................. 122
Photo 6.3 – Robert’s view when sitting in his backyard ........................................................ 123
Photo 6.4 – Louisa’s loungeroom wall with photos and prints on display ............................ 124
Photo 6.5 – Louisa’s ceiling decorated with images.............................................................. 125
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Glossary
ABS: Australian Bureau of Statistics
AHURI: Australia Housing and Urban Research Institute
AIHW: Australian Institute of Health and Wellbeing
CHIA: Community Housing Industry Association—an organisation that
supports and advocates for the growth of community housing at a
national level
CHIA Vic: Community Housing Industry Association Victoria—an organisation
that supports and advocates for the growth of the community housing
sector in Victoria.
CHFV: Community Housing Federation of Victoria. CHFV became CHIA Vic
in 2015
CHO: Community Housing Organisation
CRA: Commonwealth Rent Assistance—payment for people living in
community housing or the private rental sector who are receiving an
income support payment to contribute towards paying rent.
DSP: Disability Support Pension—income support for people with
permanent disability whose disability impacts their capacity to
participate in paid employment.
DSS: Department of Social Services—Federal Government department
responsible for policies and programs related to the wellbeing of
individuals and families.
Executive staff: I use the term ‘executive staff’ throughout the thesis to refer to
Unison’s executive staff members who participated in the research.
Homes Victoria: The agency responsible for managing and delivering public housing
and working with not-for-profit organisations who manage community
housing.
Housing Vic: A platform that provides the public with information and online
services for social housing tenants and those wanting information
about social housing in Victoria.
LESP: Local External Service Providers—organisations that partner with
Unison to provide social and tenancy support to Unison tenants.
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NRAS: National Rental Affordability Scheme—a Federal Government scheme
to increase the supply of affordable housing for low- and medium-
income households.
Place-Managers: I use the term ‘place-manager’ throughout the thesis to refer Unison
staff who managed housing sites and tenancies. This includes staff who
worked directly with tenants (who Unison call ‘place-managers’) and
team leaders.
PRS: Private Rental Sector
RTA: Residential Tenancy Act 1997 (2020)
SOMIH: State Owned and Managed Indigenous Housing
Tenant Participants: I use the term ‘tenant participant’ to refer to tenants who lived at
North-East and North-West Burbs and who participated in interviews
for this research.
Unison: Unison Housing
VCAT: Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal—the state body
responsible for resolving legal disputes and making decisions in
Victoria.
VHR: Victorian Housing Registrar—where Victorian residents register for
social housing.
VicGov: Victorian Government
YCH: Yarra Community Housing—one of two organisations that merged to
become Unison.
1
Abstract
The shortfall in social and affordable housing in Australia has been widely reported. In
Victoria, the role of community housing in providing social and affordable housing has been
gradually increasing over the last few decades, and this is projected to grow in the coming
years. One approach community housing organisations (CHOs) use to deliver housing to
people on low incomes is through mixed-tenure sites that provide social housing and
affordable housing. Research to date has primarily focused on the key objective of mixed-
tenure housing, which is to improve the social and economic position of social housing
tenants. At best, outcomes have been mixed, while experiences outside of this objective are
largely unknown. As such, there is ambiguity surrounding what mixed-tenure community
housing offers the people residing there, particularly for social and affordable sites.
This research employed a qualitative approach to study and compare two social and
affordable mixed-tenure housing sites delivered by Unison Housing, a CHO in Melbourne,
Victoria. The study consisted of document analysis of Unison’s policies and three focus
groups with 12 staff members, ethnographic observation on two mixed-tenure sites, and
photo-elicited and semi-structured interviews with 11 tenants to gain insights into the factors
and processes that contribute to tenants’ homemaking practices. The thesis builds a
framework of ontological security in community housing, drawing on Dupuis and Thorns’
(1998) conditions of home, Kearns et al.’s (2000) notion of ‘freedom from’ and ‘freedom to’,
and Giddens’ (1991) ideas of adaptive reactions to explain how historical and current social
and economic contexts shaped participants’ experiences of home.
Social and material conditions attached to tenure provided ‘freedom from’ past experiences
of insecurity and risks to safety, enabling participants to passively experience the benefits of
home, and the ‘freedom to’ actively engage in making home. However, the housing sites
were also places of social and material disruption that unmade home. In these instances,
participants engaged in adaptive practices to remake a compromised version of home.
Despite being a mixed-tenure study, tenure type was not a driver for how tenant participants
experienced home. Indeed, tenant participants of both tenure types shared similar social and
economic marginalisation, experienced the making, unmaking, and remaking of home in
similar ways, and derived comparable wellbeing from these experiences. The research draws
attention to how past and current social and material conditions, and housing governance,
2
intersect to mould experiences of home. Further, this research reinforces the significance of
affordable, secure housing, and emphasises the need for consistent, accessible, and active on-
site governance.
3
1. Introduction
This thesis examines what it is like to live in community housing, with a focus on how the
conditions of community housing inform experiences of home and homemaking practices.
This introductory chapter presents an overview of the research project. The first section
provides a summary of the research problem this thesis explores and highlights the need to
investigate social and affordable tenant experiences in community housing due to the limited
scholarly knowledge about these tenure groups and the importance of understanding and
improving how housing is delivered. Next, the chapter details the research aims and
questions, the theoretical framework that guides the analysis, and the research design. There
are various terms used to describe the housing arrangements and households included in this
research. As such, the chapter then provides clarity on these key terms and how they will be
used throughout the thesis. Finally, the chapter concludes with an overview of the proceeding
chapters.
1.1 Research summary
1.1.1 Research problem
Housing unaffordability in Australia is a national issue that is felt acutely by lower income
households. In Australia, as in other compariable Western liberal countries such as the United
Kingdom and Canada, government provision of public housing was once central to housing
delivery for low- to moderate-income households, but in the last four decades the public
housing system has undergone a process commonly understood as residualisation (Dalton,
2009; Davis & Engels, 2021; O’Keefe, 2024; Pawson et al., 2020; Yates, 2013).
Residualisation refers to the deliberate policy choices of successive governments that aim to
shift government support from public to private provision, including chronic underinvestment
in the supply and maintenance of public housing and the tightening of eligibility to those in
greatest need (Clarke et al., 2022; O’Keefe, 2024; Pawson et al., 2020; Yates, 2013).
Nationally, social housing stock as a percentage of all housing has reduced from 6.2% in
1991 to 4.3% in 2019 (Clarke et al., 2022; O’Keeffe, 2024). This has been due to a reduction
in creating new stock and the selling or demolishing of existing stock (Pawson et al., 2020).
For example, the creation of new stock has reduced from around 10,000 dwellings per year in
4
the 1980s to 3,000– 4,000 dwellings per year since 19961, while almost 200,000 public
housing homes have been sold or demolished since 2017 (Pawson et al., 2020). As such, in
Victoria alone, there are just over 50,000 applicants waiting to be allocated social housing
(Homes Victoria, 2025d), and this eligibility is expected to grow to more than 100,000 by
2031 (CHIA Vic, 2017). To manage the scarcity of social housing stock with growing
waitlists, a prioritisation system has been in place since the 1990s that targets those in
greatest and most urgent need (Clarke et al., 2022; Pawson et al., 2020). This includes
households who, in addition to having a low income, have additional vulnerabilities, such as
experiencing crises like family violence or homelessness, are ageing, and/or have health
needs, mental illness, and/or other disabilities (Clarke et al., 2022; Pawson et al., 2020). This
targeting has contributed to socially disadvantaged households being concentrated within
public housing, and public housing being stigmatised as places of social problems that
entrench social disadvantage and exclusion (Arthurson, 2012; Clarke et al., 2022; O’Keefe,
2024).
The residualisation of the public housing system has also meant that lower income
households who meet income eligibility for social housing must now secure housing in an
increasingly unaffordable private rental market (Davis & Engels, 2021; O’Keeffe, 2024). To
support this, commonwealth-funded housing assistance has been redirected from social
housing provision to rent assistance payments for individuals. In this sense, Australia
followed international trends, that have used demand side subsidies since the 1970s to
support low and very-low income households to access private rental housing, such as
housing vouchers in the United States and the Housing Benefit in the United Kingdom
(Colburn, 2019; Pawson et al., 2020; Priemuus et al., 2005). In Australia, this is called
Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) (Yates, 2013).2 Rent assistance has been in place for
those receiving the aged pension since 1958 (Pawson et al., 2020) but in the mid 1990s CRA
expanded to become the main source of direct housing assistance to low-income households
(Yates, 2013). As CRA is indexed using Consumer Price Index rather than housing rent
1 The exception is a short-lived increase during the Rudd Labor Government’s 2008 Nation Building Economic
Stimulus Plan (NBESP) in response to the Global Financial Crisis, that saw just under 20,000 new social
housing dwellings built over three years (Pawson et al., 2020).
2 CRA is paid at a rate of 75 cents for every dollar over the rent threshold up to a maximum amount and is
available to low-income households who receive another social security payment, such as the age pension,
disability support payment, or parenting payment (Pawson et al., 2020). For example, a single parent with one or
two children can receive the maximum payment of $248.22 per fortnight if their rent is at least $526.54 per
fortnight (Services Australia, 2025).
5
inflation, it has reduced in value over time (Pawson et al., 2020). Indeed, CRA has not
necessarily supported the supply or affordability requirements for lower income households
(Morris, 2018; Yates, 2013), as illustrated by 480,000 low and very-low-income households
living in housing affordability stress nationally (AHURI, 2023). Hulse et al.’s (2019a)
analysis of supply changes to the private rental market between 1996 and 2016 identified
structural factors that create particular stress for low-income households. An increase in
middle- and high-income households living in private rental properties, and an increase in
rents set at mid-market level ($300–$480 per week in 2016) combined with a decrease in
rents set at low-market level (below $300 per week in 2016) has meant there are insufficient
properties available for low-income households (Hulse et al., 2019a). Further, landlord
requests for upfront rental payments, rental bidding, and unaffordable rent increases all have
contributed to the unaffordability of the private rental market for lower income households
(O’Keeffe, 2024). Taken together, the undersupply of both social and affordable housing has
exacerbated the housing insecurity experienced by lower income households (Baker et al.,
2016; O’Keeffe, 2024).
One approach to addressing the problems associated with public housing and increasing the
supply of social and affordable housing has been to diversify the social housing sector
through the introduction of non-government, not-for-profit community housing organisations
(CHOs). Growing the community housing sector has been a government imperative across
the states and territories for the last two decades, with the desire for community housing to be
a key provider of social housing, supplementing or replacing the state’s role (Flanagan, 2008;
Jacobs & Travers, 2015; Pawson et al., 2020). Again, Australia has followed international
trends in outsourcing public provision to the non-government, not-for-profit sector, such as
England and the Netherlands, which have had a larger, more established not-for-profit sector
compared to Australia (Mulligan et al., 2015), or Canada, where not-for-profit co-operative
housing has been the main provider of social housing since the 1970s (Cooper, 2022). In
comparison to public housing, CHOs are considered more financially viable, have a better
public reputation, and are understood to be better able to respond to tenant needs (Flanagan,
2008; Jacobs & Travers, 2015; Jacobs et al., 2004; Pawson et al., 2020; Pawson et al., 2016),
although claims of financial efficacy for CHOs are contested (Davis & Engels, 2021; Jacobs
& Travers, 2015). Much of the literature in this space examines the capacity of CHOs to take
on the role of social landlord, and the associated ideological questions raised by the transfer
6
of responsibility from the state to CHOs (examined next chapter) (see, for example, Eardley
& Flaxman, 2012; Farrar et al., 2003; Flanagan, 2008; Flanagan et al., 2019; Gilmour &
Mulligan, 2012; Jacobs et al., 2004; Pawson & Gilmour, 2010; Pawson et al., 2020), but there
are gaps in knowledge of how CHOs are performing as social landlords, and how tenants
perceive their experiences of community housing.
Another common approach to address the problems associated with social and affordable
housing is mixed-tenure housing. This is where a mix of tenure types are delivered together
within a multi-unit project or across a broader housing provider portfolio, including social
housing, affordable housing, and dwellings sold at market price for private tenure (Pawson et
al., 2020). Mixed-tenure housing has been a recurrent theme across Western countries,
including, for example, the United Kingdom (Evans, 2009; Kearns & Mason, 2007), Canada
(Rowe & Dunn, 2015), Italy (Belotti, 2017), The Netherlands (Klienhans, 2004), Sweden
(Musterd & Andersson, 2005), and the United States (Marom & Carmon, 2015). While
variances exit in approach and scale between countries, the rationale for tenure mix is the
same. This approach puts particular emphasis on how housing is provided to achieve
specified social outcomes. Key policy objectives purport that the introduction of higher
income earners will increase local resources and reduce stigma in neighbourhoods and
housing estates thereby increasing the social inclusion and opportunities for social housing
tenants (Arthurson, 2012; Kearns & Mason, 2007). The model that has received the most
scholarly attention is the mix of private housing with social housing within multi-unit
projects used in public housing renewal projects. This approach aims to increase the supply
of social housing dwellings while also addressing the social problems associated with public
housing and the concentration of social disadvantage (Arthurson, 2012; Arthurson & Darcy,
2015; Kearns & Mason, 2007; Wood, 2003). Mixed-tenure research situated in estate renewal
projects has primarily evaluated policy objectives, finding they have not been achieved (see
Arthurson, 2012; Arthurson et al., 2015; Evans, 2009; Kearns & Mason, 2007; Kleinhans,
2004; Parkinson et al., 2014; Shaw et al., 2013; Shaw & Hagemans, 2015; Wood, 2003;
Ziersch & Arthurson, 2007). Low-income households report either negative or no effects
(Kearns & Mason, 2007; Shaw & Hagemans, 2015; Wood, 2003), while the main
beneficiaries are found to be middle-income households and property developers (Parkinson
et al., 2014; Shaw et al., 2013). Further, when this approach is delivered through public
housing estate renewals, there is a negligible increase in social housing dwellings (Porter et
7
al., 2023). Because research has primarily focused on policy objectives, it is unclear if mixed-
tenure housing is of benefit to low-income tenants in other areas. And while negative impacts
have been reported in properties that are a mix of private and public tenancies, there has yet
to be an investigation into the mix of social and affordable tenancy types. As this is an
increasingly common approach to housing delivery, there is a need to explore the factors that
contribute to tenants’ experiences, positive or otherwise.
The benefits associated with having a home is a worthy point of enquiry for the social and
affordable mixed-tenure housing model and one that has not yet been undertaken. This aligns
with the premise that the approach used to deliver housing is as important as its supply but
directs focus to other benefits tenants may experience outside of those intended by mixed-
tenure policy. For example, having a home is associated with wellbeing, belonging,
connection, safety, and a place to establish routines and enact family and other types of
relationships (Clapham, 2005, 2010; Easthope, 2004; Kearns et al., 2000; Mallet, 2004; Mee,
2007, 2009; Saunders,1989). Meanings of home are found to be beneficial across the
spectrum of tenure types, including homeownership, private rental, social housing, and
supported social housing, but there are nuances in how homes are experienced and facilitated
due to, for example, tenure conditions and socioeconomic contexts (see Dupuis & Thorns,
1998; Easthope, 2014; Kearns et al., 2000; Padgett, 2007; Henwood et al., 2018; Mee, 2007;
Saunders, 1989). As context and the social and material environment inform meanings of
home (Dupuis & Thorns, 1998), examining how home is experienced within social and
affordable mixed-tenure community housing is necessary to understand how CHOs, which
are tasked with enhancing tenant wellbeing and quality of life (AHURI, 2020), can facilitate
valued conditions while addressing the housing needs of two tenure groups.
1.1.2 Research questions
Building on the ideas that the approach to delivering housing is as important as the supply of
housing, that there is a need to examine what mixed-tenure housing can offer tenants outside
of key objectives, and that there is value in considering the notion of home as beneficial to
tenants living in mixed-tenure community housing, the aim of this research is to examine
what social and affordable mixed-tenure community housing can offer the people living
there. The following overarching research question was developed to guide my research:
8
How do social and affordable housing tenants construct their notion of ‘home’ in mixed-
tenure community housing?
This was supported by three sub-questions:
1) How do social and affordable tenants experience their home?
2) What value do social and affordable tenants assign to these experiences of home?
3) What factors facilitate, inhibit, and/or contribute to these experiences of home?
1.1.3 Theoretical approach
To answer the research questions, I used a framework developed from the concept of
ontological security. Situated within his theory of structuration, Anthony Giddens’ (1984,
1991) notion of ontological security has been foundational in applications of ontological
security within housing research and so I used it to provide the basis for examining how
tenants in this study constructed their notion of home. Giddens understands ontological
security to emerge when one has trust in the predictability and constancy of the social and
material environment. This trust provides understanding of the social order and one’s position
within it and where routinised practices both establish and reinforce this trust (Giddens, 1984,
1991). This process enables one to ‘be’, that is, to feel a sense of comfort and security, as
well as to plan for the future (Giddens, 1984, 1991).
The home is a key locale for establishing and maintaining a sense of ontological security.
Dupuis and Thorns (1998) have operationalised the concept of ontological security within the
context of homeownership. They state that home is experienced when four conditions of
ontological security are met, which are: 1) when home is a constant social and material
environment, 2) when daily routines can be enacted, 3) when people feel in control and have
privacy, and 4) when there is a secure base to construct identities. Dupuis and Thorns’ four
conditions are a useful starting point to understand how community housing tenants
experience their homes because these conditions have shown to have utility across different
tenure types (Fitzpatrick & Watts, 2017; Padgett, 2007; Henwood et al., 2018). I used these
four conditions to extend on understandings of home in community housing, examining how
the conditions are experienced, what value the conditions are to tenants, and the factors that
facilitate or inhibit the conditions of home. To do this, I built on Dupuis and Thorns’
framework by taking into account factors that informed and shaped experiences in
9
community housing. Indeed, Dupuis and Thorns note that meanings of home are context
specific. As such, I introduced two additional theoretical elements to build a framework of
ontological security that is relevant to this particular context.
First is Kearns et al.’s (2000) idea of ‘freedoms’ that sits within their psychosocial concept of
home, where the home creates freedom from outside surveillance, which in turn provides the
freedom to do as one wishes, without judgement from others. I extended Kearns et al.’s
(2000) ideas of ‘freedom from’ and ‘freedom to’ to capture the temporal dimensions of home,
in this case, how past experiences of security and insecurity, or trust and distrust, informed
current and future experiences of ontological security, or experiences of home, in community
housing.
Second was Giddens’ (1991) notion of ‘adaptive reactions’, that is, reactions people have to
risk situations in modern life. Adaptive reactions extend Giddens’ theory of ontological
security but this notion is rarely included in scholarship within the field of housing and home
research (with a notable exception being that of Power [2022]). Giddens argues that when
faced with risks to one’s sense of security, we engage in practices to re-establish a sense of
trust in the constancy of the social and material environment. In this sense, ontological
security is an ongoing endeavour that is continually sought, and so when under threat, we
engage in ‘adaptive reactions’ to re-establish that sense of trust. Social housing sites can, at
times, be fraught with conflict or threats to safety (Cheshire et al., 2021; Baxter, 2017). As
such, I drew on these adaptive reactions to examine how community housing tenants adjusted
to risks and threats within their home environments.
1.1.4 Research design
To achieve the aim of my research, I applied a qualitative multimethod approach, guided by
ethnographic principles. This provided a rich explorative lens to investigate how people made
sense of their experiences and how they constructed and organised their daily lives (Creswell
& Poth, 2018; Gubrium & Holstein, 2014; Liampottung, 2020). To create thick descriptions
of the social life (Clifford, 1986; Harrison, 2010) the research design included two housing
sites delivered by Unison Housing (Unison). Unison is one of the largest not-for-profit
community housing associations in Victoria, and delivers the social and affordable housing
included in this study, as well as commercial property and owners corporation management.
Unison also provides private rental properties and homelessness support services. While
10
Unison engages in numerous services, the focus of this research was solely on community
housing that was owned and managed by Unison. As my research was interested in how
participants experienced and valued their spatial contexts, two of Unison’s housing sites were
chosen to allow for a deep examination into how place shaped tenant experiences. Four data
collection methods were used, including: 1) document analysis of Unison’s policies,
procedures, practice framework, and annual reports, 2) focus groups with 12 staff members,
3) ethnographic observation at the two housing sites, and 4) photo-elicited and semi-
structured interviews with 11 tenants. This research was conducted through the Unison
Housing Research Lab at RMIT University, which allowed access to the two research sites,
Unison’s documents, and research participants. The qualitative data collected across these
four methods were coded and analysed thematically, using a combination of inductive and
deductive analysis (Wilson & Chaddha, 2009). The iterative process of deductive and
inductive analysis and data triangulation between the four data sources (Flick, 2018)
informed the development of the framework of ontological security in community housing to
achieve the overall aim of the research, and to refine and answer the research question.
1.2 Clarifying terminology
Social housing is an umbrella term used to encapsulate the different approaches to delivering
affordable, subsidised housing. There are five policy approaches to delivering social housing:
1) community housing that is owned and managed by not-for-profit organisations, 2) public
housing that is owned and managed by state or territory governments, 3) state- and territory-
owned housing that is managed by community housing organisations, 4) state-owned and
managed Indigenous housing (SOMIH), and 5) Indigenous community housing (AIHW,
2024a; AHURI, 2023; Flanagan, 2008). This thesis investigates the first—specifically,
housing that is owned and managed by, Unison.
Within community housing, there are community housing associations and community
housing providers. Housing associations are larger organisations that construct, purchase, and
acquire new property portfolios through government funding and private sector investment,
as well as manage housing owned by the Department of Housing (CHIA Vic, 2017;
Flanagan, 2008). In comparison, housing providers range in size and primarily manage
properties owned by other entities, such as the Department of Housing, and tend to specialise
in particular tenant groups, such as young people or older tenant groups (CHIA Vic, 2017;
11
Flanagan, 2008). While they differ in scale, they fall under the same policy context, so I will
refer to them collectively in this thesis as community housing organisations (CHOs).
Other terms that require clarity are ‘mixed-tenure’ compared to ‘social mix’. Mixed-tenure is
the mix of tenure types within a defined space. Within mixed-tenure policy, the mix of
incomes derived from having different tenure types residing alongside each other is intended
to create social mix. While the two terms are often used interchangeably in housing literature,
social mix is broader than this. In addition to socioeconomic variance, social mix can capture
other characteristics such as age, household type, race, or ability (Arthurson, 2010; Watson &
Johnson, 2018). While acknowledging that those residing in community housing have diverse
characteristics, in this thesis I refer to my research as ‘mixed-tenure’, as I focused on the
approach used to deliver housing and on examining the experiences of two tenure types—
social and affordable tenants.
There were two tenure groups included in this research: community housing tenants and
affordable housing tenants. Community housing tenants met the same eligibility criteria as
other public housing tenants. Primarily, eligibility was based on having low or very-low
income, such as those only receiving a social security income support payment, like the
disability support pension, jobseeker allowance, or age pension (AIHW, 2024a). Due to the
scarcity of social housing, this tenant group was also likely to have additional vulnerabilities,
such as experiencing homelessness or family violence, having a disability, or significant
health or support needs (Clarke et al., 2022; Housing Vic, 2024). The term ‘affordable
housing’ is applied in many ways (AHURI, 2023). Broadly, it refers to housing that is
appropriate to need and priced so that in addition to paying for housing, people can meet their
basic living costs, and the term can include social housing, private rental, or home ownership
(AHURI, 2023). This thesis looks at affordable housing as a tenure type, where rent is
charged as a percentage of market rate for employed tenants earning within a set income
range. I have used the term ‘affordable tenant’ to refer to those who meet Unison’s eligibility
criteria at the time of data collection—low-income households (between $35,000 and
$50,000 for a single person, increasing with household size) pay up to 75% of market rate
with up to a maximum of 30% of their income.3
3 Unison (2025) set the income limit in line with Victorian Government requirements. The current income limit
for a single-person household is $54,318 to $73,530.
12
Finally, there were two participant groups in this study: staff and tenants. Staff participants
included place-managers, team leaders, and executive staff. I will collectively refer to place-
managers and team leaders as ‘place-managers’ throughout the thesis, as they were in the
same focus groups discussing their work with tenants. ‘Executive staff’ are referred to
separately, as they were included in a separate focus group where they discussed the
organisation’s strategy and vision of housing provision. A distinction must also be made
between tenants participating in this research and other non-participating tenants living at the
housing sites. As such, I will use the term ‘tenant participant’ to refer to those who
participated in an interview as part of this research and the term ‘tenant’ to refer more
generally to those living at Unison properties.
1.3 Thesis outline
The next three chapters will detail the development of this research project. Chapter Two
critiques the body of literature this research contributes to. It provides a historical and
contemporary overview of social housing in Australia that explains why mixed-tenure
community housing takes the form that it does today, and how deepening understandings of
home can provide much needed insight into what community housing can offer its tenants.
Chapter Three examines the concepts of home and ontological security and then outlines how
I apply and extend on existing theory to develop the conceptual framework that guides the
data analysis. Chapter Four provides a rationale for the qualitative multimethod approach
used to address the research aim and questions, and details the research sites, methods for
data collection and analysis, and ethical considerations.
The subsequent four chapters present the research findings. Each of the four empirical
chapters address the research question and the three research sub-questions. Chapter Five
examines how tenant participants passively experience the conditions of home that enable a
sense of ontological security to emerge, contextualised in the housing histories and past and
current socioeconomic contexts. Chapter Six analyses how tenant participants actively
engage in homemaking practices to make and sustain a sense of ontological security and
draws attention to the benefits they derive from these practices. Chapter Seven investigates
how certain social and material conditions unmake home for tenant participants and argues
that this unmaking undermines their sense of ontological security. Chapter Eight examines
how tenant participants engage in remaking home practices to re-establish a sense of
13
ontological security—practices that re-establish a less-than-ideal version of home, but
nevertheless, one that is more liveable. Across the four findings chapters, governing factors
that contributed to the co-production of ontological security and insecurity are examined,
along with governing limitations that resulted in inconsistent experiences of home across the
housing sites.
The final chapter concludes the thesis and articulates the implications and recommendations
for the community housing sector, and social housing more broadly. The chapter also
identifies the limitations of this study and makes suggestions for future directions in research.
1.4 Conclusion
This introductory chapter has provided an overview of the study. I have identified the
research problem—that being a need to improve how social housing is delivered while also
increasing the supply of both social and affordable housing. Mixed-tenure community
housing that is made up of a mix of social and affordable housing tenants may address both
these issues, but little is known about this approach beyond evaluations of the unmet policy
objectives in private and social mixed-tenure housing, where tenure types have generally not
mixed and where there is little evidence of improved social or economic outcomes for social
housing tenants. As such, there is need for scholarly research about how mixed-tenure
community housing is experienced, especially from the perspective of those living in it. This
chapter has also stated the research aims and questions, provided an overview of the research
design, and clarified key terms.
14
2. Literature review
2.1 Introduction
A lack of affordable housing in Australia is a major issue and one that has severe implications
for low- and very-low-income households (O’Keeffe, 2024; Morris, 2019). This issue is not
unique to Australia, which has a shared cultural, political, and housing history with other
Western liberal democracies such as the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand. All
four countries experienced vast government investment in the supply of public housing after
World-War II, followed by reductions in state welfare from the 1970s onwards, including
diminished public housing, increased reliance on third party and market provision for social
services, lowering rates of homeownership and increases in housing affordability stress
(Dalton, 2009; Flanagan, 2020; Gurren & Whitehead, 2011; Mulligan et al., 2015; Murphy,
2003; Pawson et al., 2020; Sutter, 2009). Indeed, housing scholarship has analysed the
similarities between Australian housing policy more broadly, and social housing specifically,
with countries such as United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand (see, for example, Austin
et al., 2013; Dalton, 2009; Gurren & Whitehead, 2011; Lawson et al., 2024; Mulligan et al.,
2015; Pawson & Gilmour, 2010). For Australia, the changing role of the social housing
system to house only the most vulnerable and complex households, and a private rental sector
(PRS) that is now occupied by more higher income households than ever before, has resulted
in around 170,000 households on the social housing waitlist and an estimated 480,000
households experiencing housing affordability stress (AHURI, 2023; AIHW, 2024a; Davies
& Engels, 2021; O’Keeffe, 2024). Not wanting to repeat the mistakes of the past, whereby
social housing sites are perceived as exacerbating social problems and tenant exclusion, state
and federal governments are challenged by balancing these supply demands with delivering
social housing in ways that enhance tenant wellbeing. This chapter contends with the latter,
examining rationales and contemporary approaches to delivering appropriate social and
affordable housing. To understand contemporary approaches to social housing, a history of
the sector is necessary. I start by providing this history, examining how the social and
political circumstances in the second half of the 20th century have led to public housing
being perceived as problematic, as well as contributing to an unaffordable private rental
market for lower income households.
15
I then examine the rationale for growing the community housing sector. Community housing
is considered more cost effective and responsive to tenant needs compared to public housing,
and so is regarded by governments to be a better alternative (Flanagan, 2008; Pawson et al.,
2020). Additionally, community housing has played a central role in the development and
provision of affordable rental housing (Sharam et al., 2018). An overview of the current
community housing sector in Victoria is also provided. I show that while community housing
is distinct from public housing within a policy and governance setting, this distinction is not
clear in scholarly research. As such, there is limited understanding of unique tenant
experiences within community housing.
The third section of the chapter looks at the role of mixed-tenure in addressing the problems
associated with public housing. Mixed-tenure research has primarily focused on policy
objectives, which aim to increase social tenants’ social networks and employment
opportunities to encourage social tenants to adopt mainstream norms and values, and to
increase neighbourhood services and amenities and reduce place-based stigma (Wood, 2003).
Research has found these objectives in Australia and other comparable liberal Western
democracies have not been achieved (Arthurson, 2012; Arthurson et al., 2015; Evans, 2009;
Kleinhans, 2004; Shaw et al., 2013; Shaw & Hagemans, 2015; Ziersch & Arthurson, 2007).
The focus on policy objectives in housing research provides insight into the negative aspect
of mixed-tenure housing sites but less is known about what this type of housing can offer the
tenants residing there. Given the increasingly unaffordable private rental market and growing
waitlists for social housing, this literature review highlights the need to consider different
ways that social and affordable housing can be delivered so that it can contribute to
increasing the supply of housing and do so in ways that can be of value to the people who
live there.
2.2 Why mixed-tenure community housing?
2.2.1 The problem with public housing in Australia
To understand why mixed-tenure community housing has become an increasingly popular
approach for providing social housing in Australia, an overview of our public housing history
is required. The Australian Federal Government first introduced public housing post-World
War II, in recognition that working class households needed affordable housing, and to house
employees to ensure that industries had a healthy and local workforce (Hayward, 1996). As
16
such, public housing was mostly made up of employed, working-class families (Hayward,
1996). Despite this initial post-war investment in public housing, a preference for private
provision remained a strong political and cultural feature of Australian society (Hayward,
1996; Pawson et al., 2020). The economic crisis of the 1970s was largely attributed to the
inefficiencies of public provision, further cementing the perspective that the private sector
could better respond to, among other things, Australia’s housing needs (Flanagan, 2020;
Hayward, 1996; Pawson et al., 2020). As such, over time, there has been a paradigm shift
from public housing being universalistic to being part of welfare delivery (Groenhart &
Burke, 2014; Jamrozik, 2009; Pawson et al., 2020; Yates, 2013). By the 1990s, public
housing shifted to target households with high and complex needs, and remains so today, a
process commonly referred to as residualisation (Groenhart & Burke, 2014; Jamrozik, 2009;
Pawson et al., 2020; Yates, 2013). From this, two problems have emerged. The first problem
is concern for the prolonged experiences of social exclusion of public housing tenants due to
the disadvantage being experienced on public housing estates since the mid-1980s
(Arthurson, 2012). The second problem is concern for the financial unsustainability of public
housing (Pawson et al., 2020).
Public housing tenants have become socially excluded due to numerous intersecting
socioeconomic and political circumstances. The 1980s were characterised by replacing post-
war Keynesian economics4 that encouraged government investment in public infrastructures
with neoliberal economic theory that shaped, among other things, Australian social policy
(Hayward, 1996). The influence of neoliberal ideas on public policy in Australia are reflected
in a rollback of the welfare state and subsequent reductions in government investment into
social infrastructures, a deregulated financial system, privatising of public sectors and
services, and an individualising of social problems (Hayward, 1996). Within public housing
policy, this equated to a tightening of eligibility for accessing public housing, and reductions
of Commonwealth and state investment in public housing stock (Arthurson, 2012; Hayward,
1996; Pawson et al., 2020). The tightening of public housing eligibility to just those in
‘greatest need’ resulted in a change in tenant population, from mostly employed but low-
4 John Maynard Keynes’ ‘The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money’ (1936, Kriesler & Nevile,
2018), often referred to as ‘Keynesian economics’, proposed that governments should invest in public
infrastructures to ensure national full employment so that financial systems were stable and to avoid recession
(Eatwell & Milgate, 2011). Keynesian economics informed the economic and social policy of governments in
Western social and liberal democratic societies (Kriesler & Nevile, 2018). In Australia, post-World War II
adoption of Keynesian ideas involved government investment in social/ public infrastructures, including public
housing (Hayward, 1996).
17
income families to a mostly unemployed, single-person population characterised as having
complex and multiple needs (Arthurson, 2008; Pawson et al., 2020). Social problems
associated with this new population and negative media attention resulted in public housing
estates and neighbourhoods developing stigmatised reputations (Arthurson, 2012; Mee,
2007). These factors contributed to a change in public perception, from understanding public
housing as a ‘leg up’ to seeing public housing as a mechanism for entrenching poverty and
disadvantage. Arthurson (2012) argues housing authorities were unable to grapple with the
complexity of anti-social behaviour and other challenges. As such, tenant problems were
individualised without consideration for the broader structural, social, economic, and
industrial changes that have impacted welfare and employment opportunity, and associated
social inclusion (Arthurson, 2012). This, combined with post-war public housing
development that created concentrated pockets of disadvantage in urban areas, cast public
housing tenants as socially excluded (Doney et al., 2013).
The same sociopolitical circumstances gave rise to the financial unsustainability of public
housing. The public housing system has been under increasing financial stress from the 1970s
onwards (Pawson et al., 2020). Pawson et al. (2020) identify factors that contribute to this.
One such factor is the impact of housing an increasingly residualised population who, in
addition to having a low income, are likely to have other vulnerabilities due to family
violence, homelessness, ageing, mental illness, or health and disability needs. For example, in
2022–23 just over half of all new social housing allocations went to people who were both in
greatest need and had special needs (AIHW, 2024). Definitions of greatest and special need
vary across different jurisdictions (AIHW, 2024). In Victoria, priority access to social
housing combines the two, and is allocated to those who, in addition to meeting the income
eligibility, meet one of the following four criteria:
• ‘Homeless with Support—for people who are homeless or experiencing family
violence and need support to obtain and establish appropriate, long-term housing
• Supported Housing —for people who live in unsuitable housing and have a disability
or long-term health problem requiring major structural modifications and/or personal
support to live independently
• Special Housing Needs—for people who are living in housing that has become
unsuitable and who have no alternative housing options
18
• Special Housing Needs aged 55 years and over—for people who are eligible for social
housing who are aged 55 years and over and are not eligible for another priority
category.’ (Housing Vic, 2024)
Housing a high proportion of people with special needs or in greatest need results in low
rental revenue due to most public housing tenants’ diminished rent-paying capacity (Pawson
et al., 2020). Indeed, most social housing tenants rely on government support payments, such
as unemployment or disability support payments, as their main source of income (Baker et
al., 2021; Flanagan et al., 2019; Taylor & Johnson, 2021). There are also the rising costs of
supporting tenants with complex support needs. Support for people with priority access
includes tenancy sustainment support and varies from household management through to
intensive support and supervision, improving economic participation through skills support,
and connecting tenants with broader support services (Productivity Commission, 2018).
Support is often short term, time limited and can be inconsistent across support providers and
jurisdictions (Parsell et al., 2022; Plage et al., 2023; Productivity Commission, 2018). In
addition to tenancy support costs, those who experience homelessness immediately prior to
obtaining a social housing tenancy are more likely than most other tenancy groups to have an
unfavourable or premature exit from social housing (Pawson & Munro, 2010; Taylor &
Johnson, 2021). Unfavourable or premature exits are due to, in part, challenges and costs
associated with setting up and managing a home, and allocation policies that may result in
people being rapidly housed in unsuitable or undesirable housing conditions (Pawson &
Munro, 2010). Such exits, in turn, have a financial impact on social housing providers due to
the re-letting process and loss of rental income (Pawson & Munro, 2010; Johnson et al.,
2024). Financial unsustainability is also shaped by the financial agreements between federal
and state governments that are based on historic funding levels and therefore are not
reflective of the true cost of providing public housing (Pawson et al., 2020). As such, state
governments engage in financial coping strategies, such as deferring non-emergency
maintenance and not replenishing ageing stock that has more expensive maintenance costs
(Pawson et al., 2020). This leads to the condition of housing stock falling below acceptable
standards, where it is estimated that the physical condition of 20% of Australia’s public
housing stock is unsatisfactory (Pawson et al., 2020). Both the financial unsustainability of
running public housing, and the social exclusion of public housing tenants, have been key
19
rationales to diversify the sector by including community housing and renewal programs that
redevelop public housing sites into mixed-tenure housing.
2.2.2 The problem with the private rental sector in Australia
Contributing to the need for social and affordable mixed-tenure community housing are
issues in the supply and affordability of the PRS for lower income households. As with public
housing, a cumulation of factors in the PRS over the last few decades has resulted in
increasing housing affordability stress for Quintiles 1 and 2 (Q1 and Q2) households.5
Housing affordability stress occurs when housing costs, either from paying rent or a
mortgage, exceeds 30% of household income for low- and very-low-income households
(AHURI, 2023). AHURI’s (2023) analysis of national housing affordability found that
480,000 Q1 and Q2 households were experiencing housing affordability stress at the time.
Reduction in the supply of social housing and an allocation system that prioritised those in
greatest or most urgent need has resulted in households who meet the income eligibility for
social housing, but who have fewer other vulnerabilities, being required to secure housing in
the PRS (Aminpour et al., 2024; Davis & Engels, 2021). Indeed, since the 1990s, federal
housing support has been shifting from funding the supply of social housing to providing
individuals with payments to access the PRS (Hulse et al., 2019; Yates, 2013). The two most
common funding mechanisms provided directly by government are Commonwealth Rent
Assistance (CRA) and the bond loan scheme (Aminpour et al., 2024). CRA provides direct
payments to individuals who have secured a rental property and is only available to those
receiving a social security payment. CRA has not kept pace with housing inflation costs and
so is insufficient to enable very-low-income households to compete within the mid-rent range
(Aminpour et al., 2024; Morris, 2018; Yates, 2013). Similarly, the bond loan scheme,
whereby very-low-income tenants can borrow the bond costs from the government, is
deemed ineffective due to income-to-rent eligibility restrictions that require rent to be 50% or
less of income. Because rents often exceed this income restriction for very-low-income
households, the scheme is considered inaccessible, while potential recipients report being
fearful of being unable to repay the loan and so do not use the scheme (Aminpour et al.,
5 Quintiles are groups based on the distribution of incomes. In the 2021–22 financial year, Quintile 1 was the
bottom 20% of income earners, referred to as very-low income, who had an annual income of $54,134 or less.
Quintile 2 sits between the bottom 20–40% of income earners referred to as low income, with an annual income
up to $86,689 (ABS, 2022).
20
2024). As such, both CRA and the bond loan scheme are ineffective in supporting lower
income households to rent within the PRS (Aminpour et al., 2024; Morris, 2018).
Coinciding with the expectation of lower income households securing housing in the PRS are
changes in higher income households’ housing careers. While home ownership remains the
dominant tenure type and long-term objective of most households, there has been an increase
in higher income households renting for longer periods of time. For example, in 1996, mid- to
high-income households (earning $65,000 per annum or above) made up 40% of the PRS,
and this increased to 64% in 2021 (Reynolds et al., 2024). Further, higher income households
($140,000 per annum and above) made up just 8% of the PRS in 1996, but by 2021 this had
increased to 25% (Reynolds et al., 2024). Additionally, while people under 35 years old still
make up the largest cohort of renters (54% in 1996, increasing to 60% in 2021), the biggest
increase in renters has been those aged between 35 and 54 years, growing from 25% of
renters in 1996 to 34% of renters by 2021 (AIHW, 2024b).
In their research on the rise of private renting in Australia, Hulse et al. (2019) argued the
demographic shift in the PRS could be explained by both financial barriers to homeownership
and a desire of higher income households to remain in the PRS. Changes in Australia’s
financial regulation that enabled interest only mortgages and low interest rates, as well as
taxation incentives for property investment, had all contributed to rising property value.
Indeed, the average residential dwelling price increased by more than 60% between 2015 and
2023 (AIHW, 2024c). Key beneficiaries were older, more affluent homeowning households
who could use their equity to invest in PRS, while low-moderate income and younger
households found it increasingly difficult to enter the property market (Hulse et al., 2019). At
the same time, some higher income households were choosing to remain in the PRS. As more
households changed, moved, and relocated more frequently, PRS provided more flexibility
because of short- and medium-term leases that required less commitment compared to
homeownership (Hulse et al., 2019). Private rentals could also better suit lifestyle preferences
such as households prioritising living in desirable locations that would be unaffordable to buy
in (Hulse et al., 2019). Taken together, it meant there were more households renting in the
PRS than ever before.
Changes in the housing careers of mid- to high-income households have severely impacted
the supply and availability of rental properties affordable to Q1 and Q2 households. Reynolds
21
et al.’s (2024) analysis of Australia’s private rental market identified supply shortages for Q1
households and availability shortages for Q2 households. They found that in 2021, there was
a national shortage of 255,000 private rental properties affordable to Q1 households, and this
increased to 348,000 when factoring in the utilisation of stock for higher income households
(Reynolds et al., 2024). For Q2 households, there was a shortage of 152,000 affordable and
available dwellings due to occupation of stock by higher income households. The impact of
this meant that in 2021, 82% of Q1 households and 27% of Q2 households were paying
unaffordable rent. Such circumstances can have profound effect on households, including
living in conditions of overcrowding, financial stress, forced mobility and subsequent
disruption to social ties, and constant stress of being evicted or receiving an unmanageable
rent increase (Hulse et al., 2019; Morris, 2019). In response, governments have developed
targeted interventions by way of subsidising affordable rental housing for low-middle income
households, with community housing playing a critical role.
2.3 Diversifying the sector through community housing
2.3.1 The transfer of public stock to community housing
Diversifying the public housing sector with the introduction of community housing began in
the 1980s but garnered more momentum in the early 2000s (Pawson et al., 2020; Flanagan,
2008). There were both financial and ideological distinctions between public and community
housing that motivated this shift. A key rationale for community housing is its capacity to
overcome the financial restrictions faced by the state, namely, by tenants accessing CRA that
then enables CHOs to charge higher rents, and CHOs accessing private debt, tax benefits,
third-party contributions such as donations, and access to commercial activity, such as
investing in commercial properties and owners corporation management (Flanagan, 2008;
Flanagan et al., 2019; Jacobs et al., 2004; Pawson et al., 2020; Yates, 2013). Additionally,
public perceptions of CHOs differ from those of public housing. Public housing attracts a
negative public perception because it is seen as overly bureaucratic and inefficient to run, and
is unresponsive to changing need, while state welfare is believed to encourage dependency
(Flanagan, 2008; Jacobs & Travers, 2015; Pawson et al., 2020). Conversely, CHOs are seen
as more cost effective, flexible, innovative, mission driven, and as having a greater local
connection to the communities in which they are based (Flanagan, 2008; Jacobs & Travers,
2015; Pawson et al., 2020). Although, Jacobs and Travers (2015) have pointed out that there
22
is little evidence supporting this claim of efficiency. Further, community housing is
considered to accommodate a more diverse population due to a greater range of incomes
between tenants (Kelly & Porter, 2019; Tually et al., 2020), and is perceived to contribute to
renewed neighbourhoods, to increase tenant choice, and to have improved service provision
for tenants (Jacobs et al., 2004; Pawson et al., 2016). Indeed, community housing tenancy
managers have been found to have lower caseloads than public housing tenancy managers
(Flanagan et al., 2019), and have been reported to be more responsive to tenant needs
(Pawson, 2016), while community housing tenants have been found to have more
opportunities to participate in community development activities compared to public housing
tenants (Freund et al., 2022; Pawson et al., 2016).
State and federal governments support the growth of the community housing sector in three
ways. First, state governments support growth by transferring public housing stock to CHOs.
In some cases, state governments retain ownership of the stock, and the CHO manages the
properties (Pawson et al., 2020). In other cases, the property title is transferred so that the
CHO owns and manages the housing stock (Pawson et al., 2020). Second, historically, federal
and state governments have provided funding to CHOs via capital grants for acquiring or
building community housing stock (Flanagan, 2008; Flanagan et al., 2019; CHIA Vic, 2020).
More recently, in Victoria, the state government introduced programs to provide some
ongoing subsidies (CHIA Vic, 2020), such as the ‘Build and Operate Program’ that provides
financial assistance for up to 30 years (Homes Victoria, 2025a), although public details on
how much assistance is provided are sparse. CHOs, otherwise, need to cover operating costs
from rental revenue (CHIA Vic, 2020). Third, the development of the regulatory framework
supports the growth of CHOs by enhancing investors and the public’s confidence in the
sector (CHIA Vic, 2017). In Victoria, the regulatory framework was introduced into the
Housing Act 1983 in 2005 (VicGov, 2023). The Housing Registrar oversees CHOs’
compliance with the framework, focusing on agency compliance, sustainable and inclusive
growth of the sector, and ensuring tenants’ rights and complaint-making avenues (VicGov,
2023). The accountability of CHOs to governments and investors, and the protection of
tenants’ rights is argued to instil trust from tenants, the community, and taxpayers in the
community housing sector (CHIA Vic, 2020; Pawson et al., 2020). Of note is that the
Housing Registrar in Victoria does not oversee the public housing system (which is instead
23
provided by HousingVic), while other states and territories (excluding South Australia)
comply with the National Regulatory System for community housing (VicGov, 2023).
The role of community housing as social housing provision is opposed from both an
ideological and supply-based perspective. While supporters of the shift view the supply of
social housing by CHOs as positive, considering it a decentralisation of state control and an
alternative to the individualism of the neoliberal state (Darcy, 1999), others have criticised it
for the privatisation, and hence loss, of public assets and the outsourcing of public
responsibility (Gilmour & Milligan, 2012; Pawson et al., 2020; Jacobs et al., 2004). In a
similar vein, Flanagan (2008) has raised concerns about the loss of stock in real terms. The
transfer of stock from public housing to CHOs fails to address the undersupply of social
housing. This, combined with the use of housing stock to fill affordable tenancies, may mean
those in greatest need miss out (Flanagan, 2008). Equity in eligibility and housing allocation
for prospective tenants is a cause of this apprehension. For example, there are concerns
tenants viewed as ‘deserving’, such as the elderly, have been prioritised by CHOs over those
viewed as ‘undeserving’, such as those with substance misuse issues (Davison et al., 2016).
However, these allocation patterns also speak to the financial pressures that CHOs face,
which argue that there is a need to allocate dwellings to tenants with fewer complex social
needs and higher incomes to support the financial sustainability of their organisations
(CHFV, 2015). Further, Jacobs and Travers (2015) have questioned the capability of
regulatory frameworks and the accountability of CHOs. They found policy actors had a
shared understanding that there is a need for accountability, but the implementation of quality
and risk management has been reported to primarily encourage and serve the interests of
investors and private capital (Jacobs & Travers, 2015). Regardless of these concerns, state
governments continue to prefer social housing to be delivered by CHOs.
2.3.2 Community housing and the provision of affordable rental housing
The scarcity of affordable private rental properties and a grossly insufficient social housing
sector has created the conditions for an emerging affordable housing sector. Affordable
housing can be applied across the tenure continuum, from assisted homeownership to
subsidised rental properties (Randolph et al., 2018). This thesis focuses on affordable housing
as subsidised rental properties, where rent is set at 75–80% of market rate. While there are
different financial levers that enable the development of affordable housing, the most
prominent mechanism in the last two decades is the National Rental Affordability Scheme
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(NRAS). Introduced by the federal government in 2008, the scheme provides financial
incentives to developers to invest in affordable housing projects that are then leased to
employed, low-middle income households at below market rate rent (Rowley et al., 2016).
While NRAS is projected to conclude in 2026 (DSS, 2024), research has examined other
mechanisms to support the growth of the sector given the ongoing need for affordable rental
housing (Pawson et al., 2019; Randolph et al., 2018; Benedict et al., 2022). Mechanisms
include ongoing government and for-profit investment by way of capital funds, land leases or
transfers, inclusionary planning, and rental subsidies (Pawson et al., 2019; Randolph et al.,
2018; Benedict et al., 2022).
The community housing sector has played a pivotal role in the provision of affordable rental
housing. CHOs have been allocated just over half of all NRAS financial incentives, while
52% of providers are not-for-profit organisations (Sharam et al., 2018). Additionally, under
NRAS, the federal and state governments have constructed almost 37,000 affordable housing
dwellings, of which approximately half have been transferred to CHOs on the assurance that
rent would be subsidised for 10 years (Pawson et al., 2020). After this time, organisations can
retain or sell dwellings to private investors (Pawson et al., 2020). Such levers provide clear
benefits to CHOs to provide affordable rental housing—affordable housing enables CHOs to
have a more diversified housing portfolio, enables the development of housing stock at
reduced cost, and provides the capacity to charge more rent to support financial
sustainability, while the funds from sales can be re-invested in the CHOs’ housing portfolios
(Flanagan, 2008; Flanagan et al., 2019; Randolph et al., 2018). With the conclusion of NRAS
forthcoming, CHOs are earmarked as continuing in their role as central providers and
managers of affordable rental housing (Pawson et al., 2019; Randolph et al., 2018; Benedict
et al., 2022).
Much of the research into affordable housing focuses on how to stimulate supply (Benedict et
al., 2022; Khanjanasthiti et al., 2016; Pawson et al., 2018; Rowley et al., 2016; Sharam et al.,
2017; Randolph et al., 2018). There are less ideological critiques of the need for affordable
rental housing, or who should be supplying it, than there are with social housing. One
exception to these is Yates (2016), who has suggested that the supply of affordable housing
(both ownership and renting) is a band-aid solution and instead has argued for the need to
lower housing prices and increase incomes of lower income households as a more permanent
solution to affordability issues. Yates (2016) identified ideological barriers to implementing
25
these changes, noting that because of influential, well-resourced industry lobbyists and the
vested interests of many homeowners who want to keep rental and property prices high, there
has been a ‘devaluing and narrowing of interest in housing policy’ (p. 365) by successive
federal governments rather than ensuring housing affordability across the tenure continuum.
Another exception is Pawson et al. (2019), who explained that the rationale for CHOs’ role in
the provision of affordable housing mirrors the rationale for the transfer of public housing to
CHOs, which also reflects why other human services once delivered by the state have been
outsourced to the not-for-profit sector. Pawson et al. cited the state’s preference for arms-
length governing, underpinned by the assumption that not-for-profits can better balance the
demands of the state funding and regulation requirements, commercial viability, and
community expectations. With financial benefits to CHOs, and state and federal government
preference for the community housing sector further develop, CHOs are likely to be pivotal
in the provision of affordable rental housing for lower income households into the future.
2.3.3 A snapshot of community housing in Victoria
My study was situated within a Victorian CHO, and thus a contemporary overview of the
current and projected sector within the state is required. Growth in the Victorian community
housing sector has been gradual. In 2005, almost 7% of Victorian social housing stock was
made up of community housing and this grew to almost 20% in 2023 (Table 1) (AIHW,
2024a).
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Table 1
Number of social housing dwellings in Victoria in 2005 and 2023
2005 2023
n % n %
Mainstream community
housing
4,755 6.90 16,363 19.75
Public Housing 62,961 91.33 64,720 78.12
SOMIH a 1,223 1.77 0 0
Indigenous community
housing
0 0 1,763 2.13
Social Housing Total 68,939 82,846
a State owned & managed Indigenous housing (AIHW, 2024a).
Community housing stock as a proportion of total social housing stock is projected to
increase in the coming years. The Victorian Government, via the Victorian Big Housing
Build Program, is investing $5 billion to deliver up to 12,000 dwellings over four years, with
9,300 social housing dwellings and 2,400 affordable housing dwellings (Victorian
Government, 2025). The Big Housing Build Program is promoted as the largest-ever
investment in social and affordable housing by the Victorian Government and aims to deliver
targeted housing to specific population groups across the state (Homes Victoria, 2025b).
Community housing is projected to make up a large proportion of this. CHOs are partnering
with the government to deliver 4,200 social housing dwellings and manage 4,000 dwellings
built or owned by the government (CHIA Vic, 2022). While the Big Housing Build Program
includes the delivery of affordable housing, the total number of affordable dwellings
projected to be delivered by CHOs is unknown. Currently, affordable housing makes up 16%
of the total community housing stock (CHIA Vic, 2017), but it is unclear if CHOs intend to
reduce, maintain, or grow this tenure group. As affordable housing tenants provide a
necessary income stream that supports the financial viability of CHOs (Carey & Johnson,
2022; Randolph et al., 2018), it is likely affordable housing will continue to make up at least
some of CHOs’ housing portfolio.
The Community Housing Industry Association Victoria (CHIA Vic), the peak body that
represents the not-for-profit community housing sector in Victoria, was funded by the
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Victorian Government to develop a growth transitional plan. CHIA Vic (2017) identified five
pillars to support the development of the community housing sector. They are as follows:
• Growing a sustainable sector: having stable and long-term policy, developed in
partnership between government and the community housing sector; finance models
that support the sustainability and growth of the sector; and, having professional
governance and regulation to oversee the sector.
• Meeting the housing needs of the growing Victorian Aboriginal community:
supporting the development of the Aboriginal Housing and Homelessness Framework
that aims to build the capacity and role of Aboriginal organisations in housing
provision; and, ensuring mainstream CHOs and regulators are culturally appropriate.
• Enhancing CHOs’ role as a social landlord: Embed tenant housing and non-housing
outcome measurements to capture community housing performance; sustain tenancies
through housing and non-housing supports; and provide meaningful tenant
engagement with CHOs, including feedback and complaint mechanisms.
• Building community awareness and support: build the community housing brand by
delivering benefits to the broader community; and, improving the performance of the
sector through tenant involvement.
• Developing the workforce of the future: understanding, assessing, and building the
capability of the workforce to meet the requirements of being social landlords (CHIA
Vic, 2017).
A common thread through these pillars is acknowledgement of CHOs’ role as social landlord
and the need to deliver good tenant outcomes as part of this. Much of the literature in this
space examines the capacity of CHOs to take on the role of social landlord, and the
associated ideological questions raised by the transfer of responsibility from the state to
CHOs (see, for example, Eardley & Flaxman, 2013; Farrar et al., 2003; Flanagan, 2008;
Flanagan et al., 2019; Gilmour & Mulligan, 2012; Jacobs et al., 2004; Pawson & Gilmour,
2010; Pawson et al., 2020), but there are gaps in knowledge of how CHOs are performing in
these areas. Given the intended growth and continued preference for CHOs to fulfil the social
landlord role, it is important to examine how CHOs are performing and identify areas for
improvement to ensure good tenant outcomes.
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2.3.3.1 Community housing tenants
In 2023, there were 14,916 households living in community housing in Victoria (AIHW,
2024a). Currently, there are just over 50,000 applications waiting for social housing (Homes
Victoria, 2025d), while eligibility for social housing is expected to grow to more than
100,000 by 2031 (CHIA Vic, 2017). Much of the publicly available data on Victorian
household characteristics does not distinguish between community and public housing
tenants and is instead reported as social housing data. The AIHW (2024a) report two
exceptions—they identify that 61% of Victorian community housing households are made up
of a single adult, and that in 2023, 54% of households were in greatest need, up from 29% in
2014.
Despite the state and federal governments’ preference for CHOs to be a provider of social
housing, and the intended growth of the sector, there are gaps in the literature about tenant
experiences. While community housing is argued to be distinct from public housing, there is
limited research that focuses solely on community housing tenants or that makes the
distinction between the two tenure types. Often, as with data on household characteristics, the
two groups are combined or use data sets that do not distinguish between the two (see, for
example, Baker et al., 2021; Cheshire & Bulgar, 2016; Flanagan et al., 2019). Scholarship
that focuses exclusively on community housing has included the perspectives of housing
workers (Lewis 2024; Power & Bergan, 2018), tenant experiences and perceptions of the
transfer of public housing tenure to CHOs (Jacobs et al., 2004; Pawson et al., 2016; Pawson
& Wiesel, 2014), and community development and place-making (Tually et al., 2020).
Freund et al. (2022) quantitatively surveyed community housing tenants from one CHO in
NSW on their unmet support needs. Tenants were asked about their unmet needs across five
wellbeing domains: 1) transport, employment, and financial stress; 2) housing and safety; 3)
health and health behaviours; 4) access to services; and 5) control over one’s life (Freund et
al., 2022). Paying unexpected bills was identified as the highest need, followed by mental
health support (Freund et al., 2022). The nature of using a quantitative survey means it cannot
provide insights into the circumstances that surround these support needs. While existing
research provides useful insights into community housing practices and tenants’ unmet needs,
there is limited recent scholarship that qualitatively investigates experiences of living in
community housing, and what this type of housing provision can offer the people living there.
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2.3.3.2 Affordable housing tenants
Despite affordable tenancies having existed for more than 10 years, there is limited
information available about these housing types or tenants. The NRAS annual tenant
demographic report provides some insight. As discussed earlier, NRAS is a government
scheme offering financial incentives to individuals and entities to build or rent dwellings to
low- and moderate-income households at a rate of at least 20% below market value
(Australian Government, 2022). In April 2022, there were a total of 46,284 tenants across
26,156 dwellings nationally in NRAS properties (Australian Government, 2022). Just over
half (51%) of all households had government pensions or allowances as their main income
source, followed by almost a third (30%) having a wage or salary from the private sector,
while 33% received CRA (Australian Government, 2022). The data did not include the
number of households who were eligible but unsuccessful in securing a NRAS property.
However, with more than 480,000 households living in affordability stress (AHURI, 2023), it
is clear greater investment in housing for low-income households is needed.
As discussed above, affordable housing research has tended to focus on how to stimulate
supply (Khanjanasthiti et al., 2016; Rowley et al., 2016; Sharam et al., 2017; Randolph et al.,
2018). Therefore, little is known about tenant experiences. One exception includes the
University of Queensland Undergraduate Research team’s (Dodd et al., n.d.) report on the
housing pathways and aspirations of NRAS tenants, who found that while NRAS had
supported participants to secure affordable and appropriate housing through private rental,
many participants were uncertain about their housing futures with affordability concerns
shaping their housing aspirations. Another exception is Carey and Johnson’s (2022) report on
housing satisfaction for affordable tenants, which found that participants preferred affordable
community housing over the private rental system because it was a more accessible system
that offered ongoing tenancy agreements; however, some were considering moving due to
uneven communication for the CHO and the disruptive behaviour of other tenants in
apartment blocks. Nevertheless, there remains a considerable gap in scholarly literature that
examines the experience of affordable housing tenants living in housing delivered by CHOs.
Given the identified need for more affordable housing, combined with the state and federal
governments’ penchant for increasing affordable housing through the community housing
sector and CHOs’ reliance on this tenure group for financial sustainability, it is necessary to
30
understand more about affordable tenant experiences to ensure housing is delivered in ways
that meet their needs and preferences.
2.4 Diversifying the sector through mixed-tenure housing
2.4.1 Approaches to mixed-tenure housing
The second policy initiative to diversify public housing is through tenure mix. Tenure mix
and social mix are terms that are often used interchangeably, but they are distinct. Tenure mix
is the approach used to create social mix. Here, social mix refers to income mix. The idea is
that a mix of income levels derived from a range of tenure types creates a mix of different
social classes within a given area. While this is a limited understanding of social mix and
ignores factors such as age, household type, life stage, and ethnicity, mixing tenure types is
the dominant approach to achieving social mix. A way of achieving this within existing urban
areas is through tenure diversification. A critique of mixed-tenure aims will be provided later
in the chapter, but simply put, tenure diversification programs assume social housing estates
are isolated, stigmatised, dangerous places that tenure mix aims to rectify through the
introduction of higher income earners, improved neighbourhood amenities, and reduced area-
based stigma (Capp et al., 2022; O’Keeffe, 2024). Kelly and Porter (2019) have identified
composition as a crucial component of tenure diversification; within current mixed-tenure
discourse this refers to the tenure type, including property owners, private renters, or social
renters. Tenure diversification also includes the concentration or the ratios of the tenure mix
(Kelly & Porter, 2019). There is a lack of evidence that supports that a particular ratio is
better suited to achieving the intended outcomes of tenure mix (Capp et al., 2022; Kelly &
Porter, 2019). However, many tenure diversification programs aim for a composition mix of
70% private tenure and 30% social tenure based on the commercial viability of the
diversification program (Capp et al., 2022; Jama & Shaw, 2017; Kelly & Porter, 2019). The
scale of tenure mix is also a component of diversification (Kelly & Porter, 2019). This varies
from being within a large residential property, such as an apartment building, an estate made
up of multiple buildings, or scaled to a neighbourhood level (Capp et al., 2022; Kelly &
Porter, 2019). Groves et al. (2003) also identified three mix patterns as an additional
component of tenure diversification: 1) integrated, whereby tenure types reside side by side
with no discernible difference; 2) segmented, where tenure types are grouped in smaller
blocks within a larger area, such as floors within a building, or buildings within an estate; and
31
3) segregated, where tenure types within a neighbourhood are locationally and aesthetically
distinct.
In addition, there are different approaches to tenure diversification that have been adopted at
various times in Australian housing policy. One approach is through the transfer of public
stock to CHOs. Here, the greater range of incomes between community housing tenants is
deemed to equate to a more diverse population (Kelly & Porter, 2019; Tually et al., 2020).
However, as critiqued earlier, there is limited data to support this idea.
Another approach to tenure diversification is segmented estate development where public
housing estates are redeveloped and subsections transferred to private developers for private
sale (Randolph & Wood, 2003). This approach consists of private owners and renters mixed
with social renters, usually with ratios of 70% private and 30% social (Capp et al., 2022;
Kelly & Porter, 2019). For the last two decades this approach has most commonly been
delivered through the Private-Public Partnership model (Kelly & Porter, 2019). Partnerships
have included property developers and government and have increasingly included CHOs.
The perceived benefits of this approach include a renewal of ageing stock and associated
financial benefits such as lower maintenance costs, creating new stock that better meets the
needs to current social housing tenants, as well as the benefits derived from tenure mix
(explored below) (Atkinson, 2008; Randolph & Wood, 2003; Wood, 2003).
Redevelopment programs have been criticised for prioritising the economic needs of
developers over the social needs of social tenants, for the loss of public assets, for
undervaluing public assets to increase developers’ profit margins without making the
required gains in social housing stock, as well as for failing to meet the tenure mix objectives
for social tenants (discussed below) (Atkinson, 2008; Jama & Shaw, 2017; Kelly & Porter,
2019; Levin et al., 2014). Kelly and Porter (2019, p. 51) critiqued private-public partnerships
as having ‘complex profit-sharing arrangements and accountability structures that are often
unknown to the public’. While the renewal process has also included participation with
community stakeholders (including tenants, community members, and local organisations),
this participation has been criticised as being utilised to create consensus or to avoid dissent
from the desired renewal approach rather than creating genuine co-participation in planning
(Darcy & Rogers, 2014; Jama & Shaw, 2017). The approach has also been questioned
ideologically pertaining to the transfer of public land—that should be used for public good—
32
to private developers for profit-making purposes (Kelly & Porter, 2019). Nonetheless, this
approach continues to be preferred by government to achieve social mix.
Another initiative is property sales of public housing to private individual tenants. This is
comparable to the ‘right to buy’ initiative in Britain, whereby public housing tenants are
given the opportunity to purchase their property (Randolph & Wood, 2003). This approach is
not considered diversification in terms of the objectives of tenure mix policy noted earlier;
still, it has been a ‘major form of tenure diversification’ (Randolph & Wood, 2003, p. 20).
Atkinson (2008) outlined that the benefits include cost-saving measures from lower rent
arrears and lower tenant turnover, and that so long as sales are met with new investment, this
method can ensure stock replacement meets current priorities. Further, Atkinson (2008)
argued that the sale of properties could offset the purchase of new stock in other areas,
contributing to the dispersal of public properties. Wood (2003) found that this approach fails
to provide sustainable tenure diversification, as higher status estates are bought into while
low-status estates with a residualised population are not. He argued the low-status estates still
have concentrations of social problems, while high-status estates are homogenised.
Effectively, this approach depletes overall stock and removes the better quality public stock
(Randolph & Wood, 2003). While this may address some challenges with public stock, both
Randolph and Wood’s (2003) and Wood’s (2003) analyses suggest this approach has not met
the objectives of tenure diversification.
Lastly, there is an emerging tenure diversification approach that has been absent in
Australian-based research which will be explored throughout this thesis. This is the
combination of social renters mixed with affordable renters, delivered by CHOs. As
discussed earlier, affordable tenants are those who are employed, but due to their low
incomes, struggle to secure tenure in the private rental market. This approach is increasingly
adopted by CHOs, as it benefits both low-income renters and CHOs. The delivery of
affordable rental properties alongside social tenancies helps address the shortfall of
affordable housing within the private sector, while the higher rent from this tenant group (as a
percentage of market rate rather than income) is an important revenue source for CHOs,
contributing to their financial viability (Carey & Johnson, 2022). This type of tenure mix
resembles the ‘Culture-of-Work Projects’ approach adopted in the United States (Khadduri &
Martin, 1997). In this approach, all residents have relatively low incomes; however, up to
20% have a very low income, and more than 70% are employed (Khadduri & Martin, 1997).
33
While the rationale for this ratio is not clear, the belief is that by integrating a minority of
unemployed poor households with a majority of poor-but-employed households, connection
and trust would be fostered from which ‘hope and opportunity grow’ (Spence, 1993, p. 367).
There is limited evaluation of the effectiveness of this approach in the literature. One
exception is Joseph’s (2006) mixed-tenure review that found that in one estate made up of
low- and moderate-income families both paying subsidised rent, there was more interaction
between tenure types compared to tenure mixes with greater income disparity. In explaining
this, Joseph noted 60% of the higher-income earners had previously lived in public housing
and so had a shared life experience with the lower income households. In Australia, this is an
emerging tenure mix, so to date there is scant theoretical critique or evidence on its
effectiveness in addressing the social needs of both tenancy types.
2.4.2 Mixed-tenure effects and evidence
Current iterations of tenure mix attempt to do two things. First, at a neighbourhood level
tenure mix attempts to alleviate concentrations of disadvantage. This objective is underpinned
by negative neighbourhood effect theory (Power & Bergan, 2018). Second, at an individual
level, tenure mix attempts to enhance social inclusion. Here, employment is typically the
basis for social inclusion (Power & Bergan, 2018). Kearns and Mason (2007) have identified
four effects that policy makers claim will be created by mixed-tenure communities that will
overcome social exclusion: resource effects, transformation effects, role model effects, and
community effects. The next section will present the current debates surrounding
neighbourhood effect, followed by a discussion on Kearns and Mason’s (2007) four effects of
tenure mix and related research. I contend that research to date is limited by being contained
to policy objectives, with an absence of research conducted on affordable renters’
experiences.
2.4.2.1 Negative neighbourhood effect theory
Negative neighbourhood effect theory purports that an increase in complex social problems
arises from higher concentrations of disadvantage within a geographical boundary
(Arthurson, 2002; Darcy, 2010). The premise is that disadvantaged people are further
disadvantaged by residing in areas that have limited opportunities compared to non-
disadvantaged areas, such as employment networks, access to services, and role models that
reinforce societal norms and values (Arthurson, 2002; Darcy, 2010; Imbroscio, 2008).
34
Derived from this theory is ‘dispersal consensus’—that the best way to alleviate urban
poverty and associated disadvantage is to disperse poor households into wealthier
neighbourhoods, creating social mix (Darcy, 2010; Imbroscio, 2008). This is done by
dispersing the urban poor into wealthier areas, or by introducing higher income earners into
disadvantaged neighbourhoods. This approach has targeted social renters who have either
experienced forced relocation into higher socioeconomic areas or who have remained in areas
that have then undergone a process of gentrification.
The evidence for negative neighbourhood effect is unclear. An example of this ambiguity is
the ‘Moving to Opportunity’ program, a dispersal program in the United States initiated in
1994 that relocated public housing households from neighbourhoods with a high
concentration of public housing to higher socioeconomic neighbourhoods (Nguyen et al.,
2016; Schmidt et al., 2017). Evaluations found both positive and negative effects were linked
with gender and age at time of relocation. Female adolescents reported reduced substance use
and positive effects on mental health, while relocation had no effect on male adolescent
substance use and had negative effects on their mental health (Nguyen et al., 2016; Schmidt
et al., 2017; Zuberi, 2012). Several studies found a lack of, or negative impact on, income and
employment opportunities for adults who relocated (Aliprantis, 2017; Lens & Gabbe, 2017;
Sanbonmatsu et al., 2011). However, those who relocated to higher socioeconomic
neigbourhoods as children were found to earn 31% more in their twenties than children who
did not move (Chetty et al., 2015). Evaluations of a similar program in the Netherlands found
that while those who experience forced relocation live in higher socioeconomic
neighbourhoods, there is no evidence of improved socioeconomic opportunity (Miltenburg,
2015). Australian-based research found benefits of dispersal have mostly been experienced
by middle-income households, while low- and very-low-income households have
experienced little to no effect, or sometimes experience negative effects (Kearns & Mason,
2007; Parkinson et al., 2014; Shaw et al., 2013; Shaw & Hagemans, 2015; Wood, 2003). The
mixed results suggest there is more complexity to social disadvantage that is not addressed
merely through geographical relocation. Regardless, mixed-tenure policy objectives continue
to be derived from negative neighbourhood effect theory. I turn now to examine these
objectives through Kearns and Mason’s (2007) tenure mix effects framework.
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2.4.2.2 Resource effect
Resource effect in relation to tenure mix refers to the idea that the introduction of higher
earners to a neighbourhood will increase goods and services to the area, which will then
increase employment opportunities (Arthurson, 2002; Kearns & Mason, 2007; Wood, 2003).
In addition, it is believed the presence of high-income earners improves existing services,
such as attracting better teachers to schools (Arthurson, 2002; Arthurson, 2012; Wood, 2003),
and higher income earners are believed to be more able to advocate effectively for
improvements for the neighbourhood (Kearns & Mason, 2007). While high-income earners
might attract goods and services to a neighbourhood it is questionable whether low-income
earners will have the desire or the means to access these (Kearns & Mason, 2007).
Furthermore, specialist services target areas of concentrated need; however, diversification
disperses this need (Wood, 2003). This, in turn, has the potential to reduce the availability of
local services that are required by an increasingly residualised social housing population with
chronic and complex needs (Wood, 2003). Resource effect can also create experiences of
displacement and exclusion for social housing tenants through the process of gentrification
(Shaw & Hagemans, 2015). Shaw and Hagemans (2015) in their study of two gentrified
Melbourne suburbs reported social housing tenants were unable to access local areas (shops,
hospitality venues, public spaces) both economically and socially. Tenants reported feeling a
sense of non-belonging in neighbourhood venues (Shaw & Hagemans, 2015). Further, public
spaces previously utilised by participants were perceived as being redeveloped for the new
higher income residents and therefore not meeting the needs of existing residents (Shaw &
Hagemans, 2015). This highlights a contention between mixed-tenure objectives and the
experiences of social tenants; the existence of market opportunity is believed to alleviate any
inequalities without consideration for broader social and economic barriers to accessing that
market.
2.4.2.3 Transformation effect
A related, but distinct, factor to neighbourhood effects are experiences of belonging or non-
belonging, marked by stigmatisation. Transformation effect supposes when a poor
neighbourhood becomes middle class it will experience both a reduction in stigma and an
increase in employment opportunity (Kearns & Mason, 2007). Supporters of mixed
communities espouse that employment opportunity is enhanced by the reduction of
neighbourhood stigma, therefore reducing the stigma experienced by the individual
36
(Arthurson, 2012; Atkinson & Kintrea, 2000; Musterd & Andersson, 2015). Reducing stigma
is supposed to then increase resources and employment opportunity to a neighbourhood, and
to improve the mental health and wellbeing for those experiencing it (Arthurson, 2012).
However, mixed-tenure research has produced ambiguous findings. Some research has found
an overall reduction in neighbourhood stigma (Arthurson, 2012; Kleinhans, 2004; Shaw et
al., 2013), while other research has reported no such reductions (Arthurson, 2012; Wood,
2003). Even if neighbourhood stigma is reduced, stigma has still been reported individually
by social housing tenants and social housing estates within neighbourhoods (Arthurson,
2012).
2.4.2.4 Role model effect and community effect
Role model effect and community effect relate to the pivot from individual experiences
within neighbourhoods to the types of social interactions that occur within spatial contexts to
modify norms of behaviour. Role model effect is based on the idea that by diversifying
resident groups, excluded groups are provided the opportunity to build social networks with
higher income earners, whereby the higher earners become role models—this is the ‘role
model effect’ (Kearns & Mason, 2007). Role models reinforce mainstream social norms and
values, such as modelling the social and economic benefits of employment and providing
motivation for those on the lower rungs to climb the social ladder (Kearns & Mason, 2007;
Musterd & Andersson, 2015; Wood, 2003). Similarly, by diversifying the resident group it is
expected the community overall will experience a cultural change that more closely aligns
with the dominant cultural norms (Keans & Mason, 2007). Community effect is said to
increase both individual and the community’s social capital (Keans & Mason, 2007). By
interacting with higher income earners, the excluded group can build social networks to
increase their own social capital and, thus, employment opportunity (Arthurson, 2012;
Ziersch & Arthurson, 2005).
Both role model and community effects rely on interaction by tenants from differing tenure
types. Mixed-tenure policy assumes that housing mix creates social mix (Musterd &
Andersson, 2015). The level of interaction and the types of interactions between social and
private tenure types has been researched in Australia, Europe and the UK, all with
comparable results. Numerous studies have reported that interactions are contained within
tenure types (Arthurson et al., 2015; Evans, 2009; Kleinhans, 2004; Shaw et al., 2013;
Ziersch & Arthurson, 2007). Social housing tenants were found to interact with one another,
37
as do private tenure types (owners or renters), but there is limited, if any, interaction between
social housing tenants and private residents (Arthurson et al., 2015; Evans, 2009; Kleinhans,
2004; Shaw et al., 2013; Ziersch & Arthurson, 2007). The interactions that do occur between
tenure types are limited to within the same apartment block and actions such as exchanging
greetings (Arthurson et al., 2015; Jama & Shaw, 2017; Kleinhans, 2004). In some
circumstances, interactions are more substantial. For example, Jama and Shaw (2017) found
more meaningful interactions are fostered between adults of different tenure types when they
have children. Further, Arthurson et al. (2015) noted more extensive interactions can exist
between residents during their participation in joint community projects, but this may not be
sustained after the project ends. Patulny and Morris (2012) examined informal support
networks amongst social renter and private tenants, finding social renters have more
heterogeneous friends and more informal support than private renters. Despite these limited
outcomes, assumptions of role model and community effects shape housing governance, and
CHO programs and tenant initiatives are frequently influenced by these ideas.
2.4.3 Gaps in mixed-tenure research
From this review, I identified two key gaps in the current mixed-tenure literature. The first
gap is the type of tenure mix. Almost all mixed-tenure research has included tenure mix being
made up of private and social tenancy types. As social and affordable tenure mix has the
potential to address both social housing need and the provision of affordable housing to low-
income households, there is an urgency to investigate how this can best be delivered to meet
the housing, social, emotional, and economic needs of tenants. Governments continue to
engage CHOs to deliver social and affordable housing, believing they are best positioned to
deliver innovative solutions to address the demand for housing (CHIA Vic, 2020; Homes
Victoria, 2025a; Pawson et al., 2020). The social and affordable mix is one example of this.
However, missing in current literature is an examination of these sites delivered by CHOs in
Australia. The second gap is that while much research has taken place in the mixed-tenure
space, this has mostly been limited to addressing key objectives. While these objectives have
not been met, it does not necessarily follow that tenure mix is of no benefit to low-income
tenants. Rather, the effects of tenure mix outside of the objectives have yet to be explored.
Further research is required to understand more about opportunities for inclusion and tenure
benefits for social and affordable housing tenants residing in this housing model. Importantly,
explorative research is needed to understand how the tenants themselves perceive the benefits
38
of their housing. Qualitative explorative research that centres the perspectives of tenants can
provide much needed insight into how social and affordable mixed-tenure community
housing can foster, or otherwise, tenant quality of life and wellbeing, and to help understand
the role of CHOs as social landlords in shaping this.
2.5 Conclusion
This chapter has reviewed the circumstances that have led to the development of social and
affordable mixed-tenure community housing. First, I provided an overview of Australia’s
public housing and PRS. This section illustrated how problems associated with a residualised
public housing sector provided the rationale to diversify the public housing with the
community housing sector, and an appetite by the government to grow CHOs’ role as social
landlord. The section also provided an overview of an increasingly unaffordable PRS, and
from this the subsequent emergence of affordable rental housing, primarily delivered by
CHOs. I then examined the use of tenure mix to address the issues associated with
concentrations of social exclusion and disadvantage found in public housing estates. It was
illustrated that there is little evidence to support the idea that the private and social mixed-
tenure approaches achieve intended policy objectives, but I suggest the under-researched
social and affordable mixed-tenure approach has the potential to meet the housing needs of
two low-income tenure groups.
I have drawn attention to two key gaps within existing research that this thesis will address.
First, while community housing is a growing sector and one that is distinct from public
housing in its provision of social and affordable housing, there is limited scholarly research
that examines the unique experiences of tenants residing in community housing. Second,
dominant understandings of mixed-tenure housing fail to encapsulate the diversity of social
and material experiences of residents. Knowledge of mixed-tenure housing sites has been
contained to key objectives. As such, there is ambiguity surrounding what mixed-tenure
housing can offer the people living there. As tenure mix delivered by CHOs is projected to
remain as a preferred method for delivering housing to low-income households, it is
necessary to investigate this space holistically, centring tenant experiences and perceptions to
inform housing policy and delivery. I do this by investigating the social life of two social and
affordable mixed-tenure housing sites delivered by a CHO in Melbourne, Victoria. In the
next chapter I detail the theoretical framework that guided my research.
39
3. Understanding home: A framework of ontological
security in community housing
3.1 Introduction
Ontological security is having a sense of safety and comfort that arises from having trust in
the predictability and constancy of one’s social and material environment (Giddens, 1984,
1991; Padgett, 2007) and therefore is an apt theoretical basis for examining home. To
understand the utility of ontological security in analysing constructions of home, a review of
home scholarship is required. This chapter begins by elucidating the meanings assigned to,
and the benefits derived from, having a home and examines factors that can shape how one
experiences home. The concept of home has been a significant point of inquiry within
housing research and identifies the value of home across the spectrum of tenure types, from
homeowners to those without a home, but this is absent in mixed-tenure research. Not only is
the idea of home universally significant, including to community housing tenants, but mixed-
tenure community housing has been established to achieve, in part, these benefits. Therefore,
examining home within this housing environment is necessary.
Next, I outline Giddens’ (1984, 1991) concept of ontological security and discuss how
housing theorists have applied it to their work. The chapter then details Dupuis and Thorns’
(1998) operationalisation of ontological security. I examine Dupuis and Thorns’ four
conditions of home and how they relate to community housing. They are: 1) home as a
constant social and material environment, 2) a place to enact daily routines, 3) a place of
control and privacy, and 4) a secure base for identity construction. I argue that existing
frameworks require development to better capture community housing tenants’ past and
current social contexts, and how these contexts inform different experiences of ontological
security.
Lastly, I draw together and extend these theories on home to outline the framework of
ontological security in community housing that I use to structure my analysis. This includes
past and present circumstances that inform experiences of home, and the value tenants assign
to these experiences, and four distinct home phenomena, denoted by the facilitation or
hindrance of different home conditions.
40
3.2 Understanding home
3.2.1 The value of home
Housing theorists’ concepts of home emphasise the subjective nature and social construction
of home, and the interdependence between the social and the material components. Clapham
(2005) understands home to be an emotionally based and meaningful relationship between
dwellers and their dwelling places. He emphasises that the construction of ‘home’ occurs
when the individual interacts with the social and physical environment. Likewise, Somerville
(1997) theorises that home is physically, psychologically, and socially constructed in real and
ideal forms of ontological significance: they are forms of ‘privacy for spatial relations,
identity for psychological relations, and familiarity for social relations’ (p. 227). Somerville
notes that while the forms are distinct, they combine within a single process to form home.
Moreover, Easthope (2004) draws attention to the subjectiveness of home. While houses are
physically built, homes are socially constructed in how they are perceived, felt, and imagined.
To this end, Easthope contends that meanings of home vary across time and place, and
between people. Easthope extends on Massey’s (1992) commentary that home is not static or
unchanging; homes change because people change and social relations within home change.
Easthope (2004) argues that, as such, ‘home is also understood as an open place, maintained
and developed through the social relations that stretch beyond it’ (p. 136). This is particularly
applicable to community housing, where, as will be discussed below, the conditions of social
housing sites can lead to more intense forms of neighbouring than found in other tenure
groups (Cheshire & Buglar, 2016).
The benefits of experiencing a dwelling as ‘home’ are vast, including physical, social, and
emotional benefits, like belonging, connection, familiarity, mental and physical ease, and a
place to enact family and other relationships (Clapham, 2005, 2010; Easthope, 2004; Mallet,
2004). As Mallet (2004, p. 66) states, home provides ‘a sense of place and belonging in an
increasingly alienating world’. Comfort and refuge are derived from having protection from
the outside world, while belonging is created by making a place that reflects the dweller and a
place where relationships, like family, are enacted (Clapham, 2005; Mallet, 2004). There is
also a body of research that examines how the conditions connected to tenure foster
wellbeing. There are numerous reported capabilities derived from having a stable and secure
home: for example, the capacity to engage socially and build social relationships, the ability
to look for employment, and the capability to better manage the challenges of life (Henwood
41
et al., 2018; Padgett, 2007; Robinson & Walshaw, 2014). The supply of a material dwelling
and secure, affordable tenancy provides the social conditions from which these capacities are
derived (Fitzpatrick & Watts, 2017; Mee, 2007; Robinson & Walshaw, 2014).
Home allows for social relationships within the home and beyond. Home is perceived as an
anchor or point of reference in the world from which one can organise social and spatial
relations (Dayaratne & Kellett, 2008; Mallet, 2004). Here, the security of a home base allows
for external social engagement. Clapham (200) argues family and intimate relationships are
core to making sense of home. Further, he says home is a place where these relationships can
flourish. Central to this is privacy and control of home boundaries, and access within the
home and between the home and external space. This includes physical, visual, and auditory
boundaries, and control over who has access (Clapham, 2005; Mee, 2007). In social housing,
this can encapsulate the physical boundary of a housing site and control over who has access,
or the way sound can travel from one household into the dwelling of another household,
especially in medium- to high-density apartment blocks (Mee, 2007).
3.2.2 Disruptions to home
Not all experiences of home are positive. Disruptions to home can include the intentional or
unintentional material and non-material damage or destruction of home, either temporarily or
permanently (Baxter & Brickell, 2014; Cheshire et al., 2021). Porteous and Smith’s (2001)
preliminary work on the topic identifies this as ‘domicide’, or the intentional destruction of
home, and focuses on the structural and political disruption to home. Housing scholars have
since engaged in more nuanced ways to understand how individual and sociopolitical factors
intersect to undo, disturb, or disrupt home in multifaceted ways (Cheshire et al., 2021;
Nasreen & Rumming, 2021; Nowicki, 2014; Van Lanen, 2022). This literature focuses on
spatial and temporal dimensions of disruptions to home. Spatially, homes can be places of
feeling unsafe, of family, domestic and other forms of violence, exploitation, or places with
persistent nuisances (Cheshire et al., 2021; Easthope, 2004; Nasreen & Rumming, 2021;
Nowicki, 2014; Royal Commission into Family Violence, 2016; Sutherland et al., 2022).
Additionally, Massey’s (1992) idea that home is unbounded is relevant to the spatial
construction and disruption of home. Here, the boundaries of home stretch further than the
material dwelling because of how the interactions that occur beyond the dwelling can inform,
or disrupt, a sense of home (Massey, 1992). Indeed, the social and material conditions of
broader housing sites and neighbourhoods can contribute to disrupting home (Cheshire et al.,
42
2021; Cheshire et al., 2019; Nowicki, 2014). For example, poor material conditions or
behaviours and social norms in a neighbourhood can contrast with a dweller’s identity,
impede on privacy, or can cause home to feel threatening or unsafe (Cheshire et al., 2021;
Houle et al., 2018; Mee, 2007).
Temporal dimensions of home also inform how home is disrupted. For example, Van Lanen’s
(2022) research with disadvantaged urban youth experiencing austerity in Ireland found that
disrupting home is a ‘multi-temporal process’ (p. 614), whereby current circumstances, past
experiences, and future expectations intersect to disrupt home. Temporal understandings of
home can also include having elements of home disrupted while concurrently having positive
home experiences. Nasreen and Ruming’s (2021) study of people living in shared-room
housing in Sydney found participants had home disrupted by often overcrowded and insecure
conditions, while simultaneously engaging in individual and shared relational homemaking
practices. Mee (2007) also found contradictory experiences of home in public housing in
Newcastle, Australia, whereby some participants had a sense of constancy from secure
tenure, while safety issues also left them feeling threatened. My research extends this work
by examining the intersection of spatial and temporal dimensions of disruptions to home
within community housing.
3.2.3 Home and neighbours
Housing and home scholarship identifies that neighbours play a significant role in how home
is experienced. Neighbourly interactions contribute to forming familiarity, connection to
place, and a sense of belonging (Boyce, 2006; Cheshire et al., 2021, Duyvendak, 2011; Mee
& Vaughan, 2012). This is derived from a range of interactions, including greetings, offers of
support, and time spent together that form meaningful emotional connections (Boyce, 2006;
Cheshire et al., 2021, Duyvendak, 2011; Mee & Vaughan, 2012). Indeed, for low-income
households, like those living in community housing, neighbourly relationships can be a
necessary source of social and material support due to social and economic constraints,
especially in the absence of other friends and family (Boyce, 2006; Cheshire & Bulgar, 2016;
de Souza, 2022). Morris (2022) identifies factors that support neighbourly interactions that
reflect home-like qualities with public housing tenants—longevity of tenure, homogeneity
between tenants, and the walkability of the neighbourhood allow for friendly and informal
contact that prevents social isolation and establishes and maintains familiarity and connection
between neighbours.
43
However, neighbours can also be a source of disruption to home. Different people have
varying ideas of normative homemaking and neighbourly behaviours, and when living in
close proximity, this can cause disputes (Baker, 2013; Cheshire & Bulgar, 2016; Cheshire et
al., 2021). Cheshire et al. (2021, p. 136) identify this variance as a ‘dialectic’ within the realm
of home, whereby the normative homemaking practices of one household can contrast with
the norms and expectations of a neighbouring household. Thus, when living in close
proximity or with shared boundaries, this variance can cause conflict and disruptions to home
(Cheshire et al., 2021). In social housing, Cheshire and Bulgar (2016) argue, this can be
exacerbated by other conditions, including poor quality buildings, high-density living, and
more intense forms of neighbouring where there tends to be increased reliance on neighbours
for social support and connection compared to other tenure types. In this vein, Boyce (2006)
draws attention to how low-income households compromise on some dimensions of home,
such as privacy, in exchange for social support and more intimate connections with
neighbours.
Neighbours can also disrupt home in more objective ways. Social housing sites receive
scholarly and policy attention for being sites of anti-social behaviour (Arthurson & Jacobs,
2006; Flint, 2002, 2004; Habibis et al., 2007, Jacobs & Arthurson, 2003; Martin, 2016). This
can vary from nuisance behaviour to more illegal conduct, including property damage, drug
dealing, and sex work (Jones et al., 2014; Mee, 2007; Wilson, 2007). This can make other
tenants feel, among other things, less safe and less in control of their homes (Mee, 2007;
Wilson, 2007). Within social and affordable mixed-tenure community housing, research on
home and, specifically, on the role of neighbours in this experience, has mostly been missing.
Given the impact of neighbours on home across other tenure and housing settings, both
positive and negative, understanding more about the role of neighbours in how tenants
experience their homes can enhance knowledge about the benefits, or otherwise, of social and
affordable mixed-tenure community housing.
3.2.4 Home and neighbourhood
The neighbourhood that homes are situated in can shape how home is experienced. Here,
Massey’s (1992) idea that home is unbounded is relevant. She argues that home is made by
the interactions that stretch beyond it to support the formation of feeling a sense of belonging
44
and comfort. This is evident in Padgett’s (2007) Housing First6 research with recently housed
older people with histories of mental illness, institutionalisation, and homelessness in the
United States, where participants established daily routines in the neighbourhood,
contributing to establishing and maintaining a sense of home. While the benefits of having
well-resourced neighbourhoods with access to necessary amenities contributes to wellbeing
(Alwaer & Coope, 2023; Chau et al., 2022), less examined is the explicit connection between
neighbourhoods and community housing tenants in how home is experienced.
Instead, scholarship points to how neighbourhoods can disrupt or diminish a sense of home.
This is tied to stigma, and policy responses to stigma, such as neighbourhood renewal and
public housing redevelopment. The intention of mixed-tenure policy and neighbourhood
renewal and redevelopment programs is to eliminate stigma by improving neighbourhood
amenities and employment opportunities (Arthurson, 2012; Atkinson & Kintrea, 2000;
Kearns & Mason, 2007; Musterd & Andersson, 2015). As reported in Chapter Two, the
effectiveness of renewal projects on reducing stigma is ambiguous (Arthurson, 2012;
Kleinhans, 2004; Shaw et al., 2013; Wood, 2003), but research suggests such initiatives
impact on tenants’ feelings of a sense of belonging. For example, Shaw and Hagemans
(2015) found that social housing tenants who remain in redeveloped neighbourhoods in
Melbourne (Australia) feel a sense of non-belonging, while Watt (2021) found that social
housing tenants in London (UK) who had relocated due to redevelopment also experienced a
sense of non-belonging in their new higher socioeconomic neighbourhoods. Further, social
ties have been found to be strong in stigmatised public housing areas (August, 2014; Morris,
2022). Yet, living in stigmatised areas can also negatively impact residents (Wacquant et al.,
2014). In these instances, Wacquant et al. (2014) argue that stigma affects a sense of self and
a willingness to engage in social relationships. These conflicting findings suggest that the role
of neighbourhood and stigma in experiences of home can be contradictory and multifaceted.
As I will outline in Chapter Four, my research included housing sites in two neighbourhoods,
6 The Housing First approach is a strategy to end homelessness, commonly targeting people with chronic and
prolonged experiences of homelessness. Housing First is the provision of permanent housing paired with
adequate mobile community support services, guided by values of consumer choice and harm reduction. This
approach is an alternative to other approaches to managing homelessness, such as the linear or stairway
approach, where people experiencing homelessness move along a continuum from crisis response to transitional
housing to permanent housing, with increased expectations of behavioural change at each stage (e.g., sobriety)
(Padgett et al., 2015).
45
one of which is stigmatised (Peel, 2003) and both of which are well-resourced with
neighbourhood amenities such as shops, health services and public transport. As such, my
research is uniquely placed to provide more clarity and enhance knowledge about how
neighbourhoods can impact on how home is experienced and valued by community housing
tenants.
3.2.5 Home and housing governance
Previous research notes the importance of housing providers in supporting tenants to establish
a sense of home as a form of tenancy sustainment (Boland, 2023; Pawson & Munro, 2010).
For example, Boland (2023) argues tenancy sustainment needs to include supporting tenants
with personalising their space to make it feel homely, to develop identities as tenants and the
expectations attached to this, and to establish daily routines. Similarly, Pawson and Munro
(2010) identify the need for housing providers to support tenants vulnerable to eviction to
achieve home-like qualities, like comfort and security, as a method to sustain tenancies.
However, neither study examined housing provider practices that could support or achieve
this. Instead, research examining housing provider practices focuses on tenancy sustainment,
without connecting this to home (Bimpson et al., 2022; Clark et al., 2020; Habibis et al.,
2007; Hickman et al., 2023; Parsell et al., 2022). There are parallels, though, between the two
outcomes of sustaining tenure and experiencing a home; that is, outcomes are achieved by
practices that focus on building and maintaining good relationships. Hickman et al. (2023)
and Bimpson et al. (2022) argue tenancy sustainment is supported by relational work between
housing workers and tenants to develop social connection in place, creating a sense of
familiarity, safety, and belonging. Further, Parsell et al. (2022) emphasise the need for
tenancy support to be relational because many tenant issues that threaten tenancies are
relational, such as problems with family or loneliness that lead to problematic substance use.
Similarly, community development in social housing is often relational, focusing on
facilitating interactions with and between tenants in both informal and formal activities, and
this contributes to feelings of safety, social connection, and belonging within the housing
sites (Sheppard et al., 2022; Tually et al., 2022).
While governing practices can contribute to positive home experiences and sustaining
tenancies, housing services can also undermine a sense of home and security. For example,
Plage et al.’s (2023) research with support services that support families at risk of
homelessness found that support workers help to stabilise families and their housing, but that
46
the uncertainty derived from fixed-term funding models affects every aspect of service
delivery, contributing to families having a sense of insecurity. Additionally, Cameron’s
(2024) research in the United Kingdom examined how anti-social behaviour complaints and
interventions can impact the perpetrators or recipients of complaints. They found
interventions are connected to a feeling of insecurity when a tenancy is threatened, and that
recipients can feel they are the target of surveillance and so experience an inability to be
themselves. Finally, Anderson-Baron and Collins (2018) researched the impact of a Housing
First policy change in Canada that replaced the provision of ongoing support with time-
limited support. They found tenants engage in self-sabotaging behaviours to avoid being
transitioned out of the program, while service providers have concern for the sense of
security of those who require ongoing support. My research builds on this body of work with
a more explicit examination into housing provider practices and their connection to
experiences of home in community housing.
As the significance of home has gained increasing interest, scholarship has contended with
how to best conceptualise and measure constructions and meanings of home. The concept of
ontological security has received notable attention in this endeavour, as it can capture both
the significance of home and the factors that contribute to making a house a home. I turn now
to provide an overview of ontological security and its utility within housing and home
research.
3.3 Ontological security
The focus of my thesis is to understand the phenomenon of making home in community
housing. Central to this is ontological security. The concept of ontological security was first
examined by Laing (1965) in the field of psychiatry with individuals experiencing
psychological distress and a need for a sense of security in their being. Laing argued people
require a sense of personal identity and assurance in the reliability of natural processes. When
a person is secure in their own sense of self, they can encounter and cope with the ‘hazards of
life’ (p. 39) in all forms, including, social, spiritual, material, and emotional. Encountering
hazards from a place of self-assurance enables a continued sense of permanency and
reliability in the world around them. Without these assurances, Laing contends, one is
ontologically insecure. The concept of ontological security was later developed by Giddens
(1984, 1991), and he has been credited with the theoretical development of ontological
47
security that has been largely drawn on in housing research (Dupuis, 2012). He defines
ontological security as:
confidence or trust that the natural and social worlds are as they appear to
be, including the basic existential parameters of self and social identity
(1984, p. 375).
Thus, it is an emotional phenomenon of ‘being-in-the-world’ (Giddens, 1991, p. 92).
Drawing on the work of Eric Erikson, Giddens says ontological security develops from the
trust and predictability experienced in infancy and early childhood that then allows an
individual to cope with the anxieties and stresses of the world in adulthood. Ontological
security is understood as an individual, emotional experience, derived from social
relationships and social experiences (Dupuis, 2012; Giddens, 1984, 1990; Noble, 2005).
Ontological security forms when routines within the social world lead to meaningful and
predictable interactions (Saunders & Williams, 1988), engendering confidence in the social
order and one’s place within this order (Hiscock et al., 2001).
Giddens (1984) situates ontological security within his theory of structuration, that is, the
structuring of social relations across time and space. Giddens explains that structures are
made up of rules and resources that human agents draw on in social interactions. Rules are
everyday, normative social practices, such as conversations, rituals, and routines, and
resources include tangible resources, capabilities, and skills. Here, agents reflexively monitor
their own conduct and that of others. This monitoring is influenced by two states of
consciousness: discursive, where conduct is influenced by rationales or deliberate thought;
and practical, where agents use assumed or commonsense knowledge when relating to and
comparing themselves to others (Giddens, 1984). Giddens postulates there is also an
unconscious dimension, and this is where ontological security is situated. Here, the need for
ontological security and a sense of trust motivates actions. The acute need for trust drives the
reproduction of routine interactions in particular places and contexts. As Giddens (1984, p.
78) explains:
Trust or ontological security is achieved and sustained by a bewildering
range of skills which agents deploy in the production and reproduction of
interaction. Such skills are founded first and foremost in the normatively
48
regulated control of what might seem, even more than turn-taking, to be the
tiniest, most insignificant details of bodily movement or expression.
Of interest to my research is how routines of social interaction that build trust, predictability,
and stability occur in place. According to Giddens (1991), this process is shaped by
globalisation: the rapidly changing world undermines the ability to form trust and security in
place. Giddens (1991) argues that in pre-modern society, trust was primarily found in
localised places in four key social environments: kinship, which provided reliable social
connections of trust relations; community, that is, localised relations in place that provided
familiarity; religious cosmologies, which provided reliability through ritual practice; and
tradition, that is, meaningful routine, which connected the past with the present and future.
Giddens (1991) argues that in contemporary society the primacy of place has been disrupted
as the global enters local communities. The global and local have thus become intertwined,
making connections fragile and fleeting. These fleeting environments create uncertainty and
instability, changing trust relations. According to Giddens, trust relations have changed from
being in-person and localised to now being characterised as distant and professional.
Negotiating the modern world increasingly requires interactions between people who are
strangers. These exchanges, which must be facilitated with a degree of trust and confidence to
ensure their effectiveness, now provide the services and assistance that would have
previously been drawn from kinship and community networks (Dupuis, 2012). While this
uncertainty of place threatens how ontological security can be established, Giddens argues we
manage this by continuously endeavouring to gain or regain autonomy and control.
Giddens’ theory of structuration, and specifically his work on ontological security, has been
criticised for being vague and lacking in practical application. For example, Turner (1986, p.
975) assessed Giddens’ theory of structuration as a ‘system of definitions linked by imprecise
text’. To Saunders (1989, p. 186), ontological security is ‘difficult to define and even more
difficult to operationalise’, while Hiscock et al. (2001, p. 52) describe ontological security as
‘elusive’ in nature. Gurney (2021) asserts that the benefits of ontological security are
overstated, that there is a lack of critical reflection on how ontological security is defined and
operationalised, and that the application of ontological security within housing research is too
far removed from Laing’s original use of the term within the context of psychiatry. Further,
Dupuis and Thorns (1998) challenge Giddens’ position that ontological security is based in
the unconscious, arguing that ontological security also functions as conscious social action.
49
Nevertheless, Giddens’ formulation of ontological security has been widely used within
housing research in the quest to understand meanings of home (e.g., Dupuis & Thorns, 1998;
Fitzpatrick & Watts, 2017; Hiscock et al., 2001; Kearns et al., 2000; Mee, 2007; Padgett,
2007; Somerville, 1997; Stonehouse et al., 2021). I join these housing scholars in seeking to
overcome the limitations of Giddens’ work and further extending his theory. I do this by
using Giddens’ work as a starting point to understand community housing tenants’ ongoing
practices to achieve ontological security, or a sense of home, as they interact with, and make
sense of, their social and material environments.
The application of ontological security within housing research was initially developed by
Saunders. Saunders (1989) contends that in a globalised world, home becomes the primary
place for ontological security. While Saunders acknowledges the risks to place from the
transience and uncertainty in the modern world identified by Giddens, he argues individuals
are just as able to engage in routine and form familiar patterns of social interaction. Here, the
permanent and physical location of home acts as the primary place of trust relations.
However, Saunders (1984, 1989) argues that ontological security within the home locale can
only be obtained through homeownership. Saunders (1984) found that people engage in
homemaking practices, such as decorating, home improvements, and gardening, to fulfil
human need, but that this can only be practised in homeownership, due to this type of tenure
allowing people to have the autonomy and control over the material aspects of home, as well
as through having financial security. However, Saunders claim is debated by others (for
example Hulse, 2008; Yip & Forrest, 2010), who argue homeownership does not guarantee
ontological security. Rather, the degree of control and autonomy that homeowners can
express are context specific and can be limited within housing arrangements that ‘require
collective agreement and collective action in relation to repairs, maintenance and
management’ (Yip & Forrest, 2010, p. 704). Others have since found that ontological security
can be obtained within different tenure types, including private rental (Easthope, 2014),
social housing (Fitzpatrick & Watts, 2017; Mee, 2007), supported social housing (Padgett,
2007; Henwood et al., 2018), and even those experiencing homelessness (McCarty, 2020;
Stonehouse et al., 2021). Housing scholarship has also investigated the psychosocial benefits
of home through the lens of ontological security (e.g., Kearns et al., 2000; Hiscock et al.,
2001; Somerville, 1997). However, one of the most prominent applications of ontological
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security in housing research is the framework developed by Dupuis and Thorns (1998). This
framework also has the most utility for my research and in the next section I examine why.
3.4 Dupuis and Thorns’ ontological security framework
Dupuis and Thorns (1998) agree with Saunders’ (1989) position that the home is a site of
ontological security. With their work grounded in empirical research, Dupuis and Thorns
have developed a four-part framework of ontological security. This includes:
• home as being a constant social and material environment
• home as a place where daily routines can be enacted
• home as a place that people feel in control of and a place of privacy
• home as a secure base to develop identities (Dupuis & Thorns, 1998).
Dupuis and Thorns (1998, p. 25) preface their work by noting that ‘meanings of home are
context specific’. Their analysis of the meaning of home was developed in relation to their
studied population group, who were older New Zealand homeowners. Like Australia, New
Zealand has a long history of valuing land and homeownership, with homeownership being
the dominant and normative tenure type. Additionally, unique to an older population group,
Dupuis and Thorns’ conceptualisation of home reflects histories of insecurity derived from
experiencing the Depression and World War II, and post-war expansionist housing policy
that saw the development of large, standalone dwellings in suburban sprawl for family life,
privacy, and space secured through homeownership. While the context of my research differs
from this, Dupuis and Thorns’ conditions of home have utility by providing a basis from
which to understand home experiences in community housing. This is because, while tenure
types differ and the participants are more diverse, there is a similar social context—both
tenure groups share national histories that value homeownership and the same housing
typology. As such, there may be comparisons in how meanings of home are constructed and
practised. I turn now to outline each of Dupuis and Thorns’ four conditions and how I will be
applying them within my research.
3.4.1 A constant social and material environment
For community housing tenants, ongoing tenure attached to the lease agreement typically
offers constancy after a period of instability and housing insecurity (Padgett, 2007; Henwood
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et al., 2018). This relates to Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) first condition of home, that is, home
as a constant social and material environment. Dupuis and Thorns (1998) argue that while
other, more public, material sites, such as familiar streets and neighbourhoods, can offer a
sense of ontological security, it is the home that provides a primary sense of permanence and
continuity. The dwelling becomes a home by the meaning attached to it from the social
interactions that occur within it. Within the context of older New Zealand homeowners,
Dupuis and Thorns connect the time-space continuum with family. Houses are purchased and
made into homes over time by the family life that occurs within them. The home is then
continued after death by passing the home onto adult children. Central to this is trust. To
Giddens (1984, 1991), having trust in the constancy of the social and material environment is
foundational to ontological security. This trust is reflected in how families interact with the
family home—as family life changes over time, their ongoing interaction with home both
creates and reinforces trust in the permanency of the social and material environment. This is
closely associated with a sense of security and stability. Dupuis and Thorns identify this
process in homeowners but note how this is undermined in renters, who instead fear eviction
at the ‘whims of the landlord’ (p. 31).
Theoretical applications of ontological security in social housing research draw attention to
the benefits of having trust in the constancy of the social and material environment (Henwood
et al., 2018; Mee, 2007; Padgett, 2007). This is largely framed as feeling secure and stable
through having ongoing tenure (Fitzpatrick & Watts, 2017; Mee, 2007; Robinson &
Walshaw, 2014). The stability that comes from tenure security provides constancy, and this
enhances health outcomes and the capacity for individuals to feel they can cope with life’s
challenges (Mee, 2007), as well as the capacity to engage relationally by having friends and
family visit (Henwood et al., 2018). Predictability in a housing future also provides the
stability needed for social tenants to consider and plan for their future, such as to find
employment and to sustain social networks and social support (Henwood et al., 2018;
Robinson & Walshaw, 2017). Ontological security therefore establishes the value of feeling a
sense of security and the positive outcomes that can be derived from this for social tenants.
However, there is less known about the process that community housing tenants undergo to
develop that trust in the constancy of home. As ontological experiences vary according to
particular social contexts (Dupuis, 2012), I use this first condition of home to examine how
community housing tenants develop this trust in the constancy of their social and material
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environment, and how governing factors, including the provision of ongoing tenure,
contribute to this.
3.4.2 Establishing routines
Routine and predictability are closely linked. Daily life is made up of routine actions that
follow familiar time-space paths, or predictable patterns (Dupuis, 2012; Giddens, 1984,
1991). Giddens understands routines as assumed actions that make up the everyday activities
of social life, forming familiarity that both supports, and is supported by, a sense of
ontological security. Here, Giddens purports that ontological security emerges from having
autonomy within predictable routines and encounters. This is captured in Dupuis and Thorns’
(1998) second condition of home, whereby home is a place where daily routines can be
enacted. It is the home, Dupuis and Thorns (1998) theorise, that provides the spatial context
for daily routines that, for older New Zealand homeowners, are often built around the rites
and rituals of family life and children. Intergenerational life and support take place at home as
routine, establishing memories, and nostalgia. This reinforces the family-home link and
connection to place. Considering routine as a condition of home is useful for my research that
included two community housing sites made up of a mix of household types, including sole
occupants, couples, and single- and dual-parented households with children. I examine how
routines in daily life are established and maintained in ways that create connection to place,
and I extend Dupuis and Thorns’ understanding of routine for people not only living in
community housing but who also are without children or extended family living nearby to
enact family life.
Research into the Housing First approach, that is, rapid rehousing with secure tenure and
social support for people who have histories of chronic homelessness, provides some insight
into this. For this tenure group, routine and familiarity have been found to occur in the
neighbourhood, but importantly, the predictability and constancy of the home enables
confidence in establishing routine (Henwood et al., 2018; Padget, 2007). For example,
Henwood et al.’s (2018) research with young people and Padget’s (2007) research with older
people both found that having stable and predictable housing allows both cohorts to develop
everyday routines, such as going to the shops or to the park, that assists with their mental
wellbeing. Rather than routine revolving around family life and developing connection to
place, recently housed people instead form routines in the neighbourhood for mental ease.
Ontological security is an individual, emotional experience, and the differences in routine
53
formation and value between tenure types suggest that the confidence to engage in routines to
support ontological security is connected to a person’s history, as well as their sense of
constancy in their current circumstances. By examining routine actions in my research, I
deepen understandings on the role of place, both in the private dwelling and shared spaces of
housing sites and neighbourhoods, and how this shapes home experiences and expressions of
ontological security.
3.4.3 Privacy and control
Home as a place of both privacy and control are developed notions within housing
scholarship that conceptualise home through the lens of ontological security. Dupuis and
Thorns’ (1998) third condition relates to privacy and control, and the way the two markers
intersect to contribute to a sense of home. They state that home is a place of privacy and
where people feel in control (Dupuis & Thorns, 1998). A home provides privacy from outside
surveillance, creating a refuge from the outside world and a sense of comfort from having this
refuge (Clapham, 2005; Mallet 2004). Related to this is a sense of control, that is, having the
autonomy over the social and material environment to be able to shut out the outside world,
as well as being able to keep and use the home as one wishes (Clapham, 2005; Mallet, 2004).
Expressing control over the home also includes the dweller using it as they wish and adapting
the home to suit their needs and/or desires. This reflects Giddens’ idea that having autonomy
over self is required for a sense of ontological security to emerge and to be maintained. Thus,
for home to be a site of ontological security, autonomy over the home, that is, autonomy over
how one interacts with the social and material dimensions, is necessary. Of interest to my
research is how this autonomy over the home can be realised for social renters when
autonomy over the space will always fall within the provision of tenancy legislation and the
social landlord. As such, for social renters, obtaining a complete and ongoing sense of
privacy and control over the dwelling is doubtful.
Saunders (1989, p. 184) states that for homeowners, home is where ‘people are offstage, free
from surveillance, in control of their immediate environment. It is their castle. It is where
they feel they belong’. Somerville (1997) distinguishes between domains of privacy. He
argues home is a site of intimacy and personal fulfilment which requires control over the
boundaries for personal privacy within the home and for family privacy of the dwelling
within the housing site or neighbourhood. While Saunders and Somerville frame control as
autonomy over a dweller’s existing social and material environment, Clapham (2010) draws
54
attention to the role of housing choice and control, that is, feeling in control of one’s housing
circumstances by having housing choices that are wanted and valued. This framing of control
considers the socioeconomic context that shapes ontological security—obtaining housing
choices that are wanted is informed by social and economic capital, while housing choices
that align with one’s values are derived from, in part, social and cultural norms. As
established conditions for achieving and maintaining ontological security, privacy and control
provide a useful reference point for examining and expanding on understandings of
homemaking in community housing. As with the previous markers, the social context of
community housing tenants needs to be considered. In addition to limited autonomy due to
tenancy type, this population group also has restricted control over housing choice due to
broader issues such as housing unaffordability and a shortage of social housing to meet the
demand (Troy et al., 2019).
3.4.4 Identity construction
Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) fourth condition of ontological security contends home is a place
to construct identities. They contextualise this within a nation state where homeownership is
part of normative culture, regarded as a rite of passage into adulthood and a source of pride.
Therefore, identity construction relates to the pride and self-esteem connected to
homeownership. Identity is also an important component of Giddens’ (1984, 1991) concept
of ontological security. He states that having trust in the predictability of the environment
enables one to understand the social order and one’s place within it to construct a sense of
self. This emphasises the importance of achieving homeownership within homeowning
dominant countries, whereby homeowners are able to construct a sense of self-esteem by
meeting normative values through home purchase. Conversely, Clapham (2010) highlights
how lack of control over housing choices can impede identity and self-esteem. Just as
housing discourse attached to homeownership can elicit pride, stigma attached to social
housing can negatively impact on identify and self-esteem. Engaging in practices to modify
the home to reflect self is also a part of identity construction, that is, using homemaking as an
expression of self (Clapham, 2005). This is connected to control. Homeowners have the
capacity to modify their homes to reflect self because the dweller has autonomy over the
material environment. Still, identity constructions can be achieved outside of
homeownership. McCarty’s (2020) research with women experiencing homelessness found
that they could experience home when surrounded with their personal possessions regardless
55
of their location, which they associated with a sense of control and self-identity. Rather than a
sense of pride that is found with homeowners, the women reported that their ‘cherished
possessions’ (p. 1325), such as family photos, were used to make anchor points that created
feelings of comfort. Similarly, the women said it was the loss of these personal possessions
that led to feeling homeless, rather than the absence of tenure.
This connection between social order, identity, and control provides a platform to examine
how identity construction emerges within community housing, where tenants have security of
tenure but are situated within a tenure type that is attached to stigma, where they have limited
housing choices and have restrictions on how the material dimensions of their homes can
reflect self.
3.5 Extending the ontological security framework
A limitation of applying a framework developed on the housing experiences of
predominantly owner-occupiers is that it cannot comprehensively capture the experience of
community housing tenants. In Australia, as in other comparable Western liberal countries
such as New Zealand, following a normative housing pathway of homeownership indicates
the dweller has achieved and maintained a level of social and financial stability. Conversely,
community housing tenants commonly have housing pathways of housing insecurity, often
intersecting with additional complex health and/or support needs (AIHW, 2024a; Houle et al.,
2018). Relevant here is the temporal dimension of home that considers how home is made or
changes across time. In Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) research, temporality consisted of
reinforcing ontological security in place—as families grow and change over time, the
material component of home provides constancy for family routines and relationships to be
enacted. The participants’ life before the family home was not discussed and seemingly not
significant to deriving a sense of ontological security from home. However, for those who
had experiences of housing insecurity, temporality meant that past insecurities informed
current experiences of home, whereby the feeling of insecurity stayed with the person
through the housing pathway. In this sense, housing insecurity, like that experienced by social
housing tenants, has an enduring impact on ontological security (Plage et al., 2023;
Stonehouse et al., 2021). Further, having a social housing tenancy can still include
uncertainty and unpredictability that can threaten a sense of home. This is especially so in
medium- and high-density apartment environments, where buildings are often of poor
56
quality, consist of shared facilities, and have limited privacy (Cheshire & Buglar, 2016).
Further, these environments may contain concentrations of disadvantaged households, some
of which may exhibit challenging unneighbourly behaviour (Cheshire & Buglar, 2016).
Therefore, the conceptual framework used in my research, which I will now outline,
considers how past and current experiences of insecurity, uncertainty and unpredictability
inform homemaking.
3.5.1 ‘Freedom from’ and ‘freedom to’
Kearns et al.’s (2000) idea of ‘freedom from’ and ‘freedom to’ that sits within their
psychosocial concept of home, provides a theoretical basis for explaining the temporal nature
of establishing ontological security in community housing. Kearns et al.’s concept draws on
the work of Giddens (1991), Somerville (1997), and Dupuis and Thorns (1998), and consists
of three dimensions. The first dimension is home as a haven, whereby the home provides the
privacy and intimacy needed to fulfil one’s need to feel safe and secure. The second
dimension is status, where having a home enables the development of self-identity and allows
a person to view self in relation to others. The third dimension is autonomy, where achieving
home as a haven then enables the dweller the freedom ‘to do what one wants and to express
oneself’ and freedom from ‘any need to conform to others’ expectations of oneself’ (p. 389).
The utility of Kearns et al.’s (2000) psychosocial benefits of home for my research are
twofold. First, the concept was developed with the inclusion of social renters, so the
perceived benefits of home were not based predominantly in the context of homeownership,
or ‘ownership is best ideology’ (p. 394). This means the concepts explored are shown to be
relevant to community housing tenants. Second, the concept complements the use of Dupuis
and Thorns’ (1998) conditions of home as Kearns et al. embedded these conditions within
their psychosocial concept. My analysis draws specifically on the idea of ‘freedoms’. Kearns
et al. undertook quantitative analysis, so my research expands on understanding the notion of
freedoms through qualitative research, examining its application beyond autonomy to
consider how freedoms apply to other conditions of home, such as constancy in the social and
material environment. In this vein, I use the idea of freedoms to explain how housing
histories and social and economic conditions inform how home is made, the value community
housing tenants assign to it, and how housing governance can support this.
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3.5.2 Adaptive reactions
I used Giddens’ (1991) notion of adaptive reactions as a starting point to explain the dynamic
and ongoing process of making a dwelling a home at community housing sites. This relates to
how people cope with risk in the modern world (Giddens, 1991), responses that are apt for
social housing tenants, where home is not always safe, or a site of security, predictability, or a
haven (Cheshire et al., 2021; Baxter, 2017). Drawing on Bettleheim (1960), Giddens (1984)
first points to how one adjusts or accommodates risk situations, albeit implicitly, using the
example of ontological insecurity experienced by prisoners of concentration camps in
Germany during World War II. Lack of purpose, autonomy, and capacity to plan ahead
caused prisoners to live in ‘circumstances of radical ontological insecurity’ (p. 62). The
prisoners who survived were able to psychologically navigate the new environment in such a
way that they could maintain a semblance of control in their day-to-day life. Longer term
prisoners, who had survived many years, had over time reorientated themselves to camp life,
whereby their identity was reconstructed in relation to prison guards and their rituals of daily
life adjusted to their oppressive routines. This example supports Giddens’ (1984) position
that in the face of ongoing risks or uncertainty, people constantly endeavour to re-establish a
sense of ontological security. In this sense, ontological security is an ongoing
accomplishment, not just in its maintenance, but in re-establishing ontological security after it
has been diminished or lost.
In situations of conventional, everyday life, Giddens (1991, p. 134) says people engage in
‘adaptive reactions’—a response to contemporary risk situations. He identifies four responses
to risk. The first is ‘pragmatic acceptance’ (p. 135). Giddens argues much of the risk in
modern society is beyond the control of the individual, and so instead people focus on day-to-
day tasks and temporary gains. This functions as a survival reaction to distract or mask ‘deep
underlying anxiety’ (p. 135) about risk beyond one’s control. The second is ‘sustained
optimism’, where people have persistent faith in abstract systems or society despite ongoing
risks and threats to certainty. Instead, there is conviction that rational thought will provide
long-term security. The third is ‘cynical pessimism’. Here, people have direct involvement
with risks. The emotional impact of deep-seated anxiety derived from the risks is lessened
‘through either humour or world-weary response to them’ (p. 136). Finally, the fourth is
‘radical engagement’, where people tangibly contest the source of risk. Underpinning this
response is the premise that one can and should take action to challenge risks and threats to
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minimise or transcend them. Giddens notes this preliminary work on adaptive reactions
requires further empirical development, which I build on in this thesis.
‘Adaptive reactions’ (Giddens, 1991, p. 134) provide the conceptual starting point to examine
how community housing tenants respond and adapt to continuous risks and threats to
security. How tenants restore a sense of ontological security is relatively unexplored within
housing research. A notable exception to this is Power’s (2022) work, which examined the
way low-income women in a range of private and social rental arrangements retain or restore
ontological security in situations of housing insecurity. She found that older women
experiencing housing insecurity seek to mentally accommodate and engage in compensatory
practices to maintain markers of home, such as identity and routine. I add to this scholarship
by examining the practices community housing tenants utilise in seeking to achieve a sense of
ontological security in risk situations. In doing so, I further Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998)
ontological security framework by examining what conditions community housing tenants
seek to re-establish, and the role of housing governance in this process.
3.6 A framework of ontological security in community housing
In this section I outline the framework of ontological security in community housing that will
guide my analysis. The framework, illustrated in Figure 1, draws together the concepts
discussed thus far and will be used to examine how home is experienced, the value tenants
assign to their experiences of home, and the factors that contribute to these experiences.
As meanings of home are specific to one’s milieu (Easthope, 2004), Figure 1 shows the
factors that shape how home is experienced in community housing. Home in community
housing considers housing governance, socioeconomic histories, current socioeconomic
contexts, and neighbours and neighbourhood. First, socioeconomic factors consider how
one’s position within labour markets and housing and welfare systems shapes past and
current experiences, and how this informs the value of home. This encapsulates the temporal
dimension of ontological security (Giddens, 1991); specifically, how past experiences of trust
or distrust, and security or insecurity inform the confidence one has in current social and
material environments. Second, an important part of one’s social context in community
housing is how housing governance, both staff and policies, and neighbours and
neighbourhood contribute to the social and material environments. As discussed above, these
factors were perhaps not relevant to Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) population group of
59
homeowners, and thus not included in their framework. However, in medium-density
community housing, these factors contribute to the social and material conditions and are
central to tenants’ social interactions in daily life. As the aim of my research is to broaden
current knowledge of home in community housing, the framework provides scope for my
analysis to consider these factors.
Figure 1
Framework of ontological security in community housing
As shown in Figure 1, my framework includes four distinct components of homemaking:
imagining home, making home, unmaking home, and remaking home. Scholarship analysing
the construction of home often portrays this as a singular phenomenon (e.g., Clapham, 2005;
Easthope, 2004; Mallet, 2004), or as two phenomena made up of homemaking and
disruptions to home (Baxter & Brickell, 2014; Cheshire et al., 2021; Easthope, 2014; Mee,
2007; Nasreen & Ruming, 2021). My thesis argues that, for community housing tenants,
there are four phenomena. Each phenomenon has a list of their corresponding conditions of
home, such as control, identity, and safety. I use Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) conditions of
home to understand the distinction between the four phenomena of home, giving attention to
the specific conditions within each one. The first is ‘imagining home’. Drawing on Kearns et
al.’s (2002) idea of ‘freedoms’, ‘imagining home’ consists of being ‘free from’ past
circumstances of insecurity, unpredictability, and risk from unsafe environments. In
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acknowledging the freedom from these circumstances, the conditions of home are
experienced passively, enabling a sense of ontological security to emerge. This component of
home emphasises the ‘being’ in Giddens’ (1984, 1991) definition of ontological security,
where tenants derive comfort from trust in the constancy and predictability of social and
material environment. Here, basic comforts, often taken for granted, such as having shelter,
heating, and cooling, form the basis of this type of home experience.
The second phenomenon is ‘making home’. This is distinct from ‘imagining home’ due to the
active, rather than passive, nature of homemaking practices. ‘Making home’ draws on Kearns
et al.’s idea of ‘freedom to’, whereby having a sense of constancy, control, and privacy
provides the freedom to actively engage in homemaking practices that establish and maintain
routines and construct identity. This version of homemaking incorporates elements beyond
Dupuis and Thorns’ conditions, like relationships of choice with friends, family, and
neighbours. As with imagining home, experiencing these conditions of home is prefaced in
past circumstances where these freedoms were not possible. This component of home reflects
Giddens’ (1984, 1991) argument that ontological security is an ongoing endeavour, and that
once made, must be maintained. Making home reflects this ongoing process.
The third phenomenon is ‘unmaking home’. I employ Baxter and Brickell’s (2014) and
Cheshire et al.’s (2021) framing of unmaking home, that is, the unintended or deliberate,
temporary or permanent disruption or damage to elements of home. Additionally, I draw on
Cheshire et al.’s (2021) idea of the dialectic relationships between homemaking and
unmaking, whereby the homemaking practices of one household can intrude and disrupt the
home life of their neighbours, in turn, unmaking the neighbours’ home. This is of particular
relevance in medium-density community housing, where neighbours live close by and have
shared spaces. While ontological insecurity is important in both Laing’s (1965) and Giddens’
(1984, 1991) formulations of ontological security, it has received less explicit attention in
studies of home. Some exceptions include Cheshire et al.’s (2021) research on how
unneighbourliness can unmake home in social housing, Easthope’s (2014) examination of
how housing policy and limited housing security in the private rental market can unmake
home, and Plage et al.’s (2023) work on the collective production of ontological insecurity
for those at risk of homelessness. I extend on this work with a deeper examination into the
factors that contribute to home unmaking, the specific conditions of home that are unmade,
and the impact this has on affected tenants. Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) idea of control as a
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marker of home is central to the experiences of home unmaking. Here, diminished control
over the social and material environment engenders experiences of ontological insecurity—
tenants’ diminished capacity to control the social and material environments then diminishes
identity construction and feelings of safety.
The fourth phenomenon is ‘remaking home’. In acknowledgement that ontological security is
an ongoing endeavour (Giddens, 1984, 1991), my ontological security framework provides
scope to build on extant limited empirical data on how tenants in community housing engage
in the practice of ‘remaking home’. Specifically, in contexts of home unmaking, I examine
how tenants and staff re-establish a sense of ontological security or regain a sense of home.
To explain remaking home practices, I draw on Giddens’ (1991) notion of adaptive reactions,
Wacquant’s (2010, p. 217) concept of ‘distancing’, where people detach themselves from
stigmatised places, and Cheshire and Bulgar’s (2016, p. 741) idea of ‘sanctioning’, a practice
used by people to distance themselves from problematic neighbours. I define remaking home
as practices used to restore a sense of ontological security after it has been threatened or
diminished. These practices are informed by tenants’ past experiences and their social and
economic position within broader housing, labour, and welfare systems. However, a remade
home does not always facilitate a fully restored sense of security. Rather, remaking home
practices reduce the impact of ontological insecurity, forming a compromised, but more
tenable, version of home.
3.7 Conclusion
In this chapter, I have outlined the framework of ontological security for community housing
that I use in this thesis. The chapter has established the rationale for this framework by first
discussing the concept of home, highlighting the value assigned and benefits derived from the
idea of having a home, rather than just a dwelling, as well as identifying factors that can
inform the making or unmaking of home. Next, the chapter examined Giddens’ (1984, 1991)
theory of ontological security, its position within Giddens’ (1991) theory of structuration, and
how Giddens’ ideas have been applied to housing research.
I then presented Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) operationalisation of ontological security within
housing, detailing each of their four conditions of home and their relevance and limitations
within the context of community housing. A key limitation of Dupuis and Thorns’ framework
is that it was developed primarily with homeowners. Thus, there are gaps in understanding
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home experiences for community housing tenants and how broader past and present
circumstances inform these experiences. In noting this limitation, I have argued the need to
consider Kearns et al.’s (2002) idea of ‘freedoms’ and Giddens’ (1991) notion of ‘adaptive
reactions’ to more comprehensively understand the process of making home in community
housing. By bringing together these different theories on how home is experienced, I have
developed a theoretical basis to examine how social and affordable community housing
tenants experience home, the value they assign to these experiences, and the factors that
inform them. In the next chapter I detail the methodological approach used for my research.
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4. Research approach: A qualitative multimethod
methodology
4.1 Introduction
In this chapter, I outline the methodological approach I used for my research. Guided by
ethnographic principles, I applied a qualitative multimethod approach to understand the social
interactions, values, and structures that inform daily life at two social and affordable mixed-
tenure community housing sites. Being guided by ethnographic principles provides an
explorative lens that allows for an investigation into how people construct and make sense of
their own experiences, and how they arrange their daily lives (Gubrium & Holstein, 2014).
The research design included document analysis, focus groups with staff, ethnographic
observation of the two housing sites, and photo-elicited and semi-structured interviews,
which allowed for thick descriptions of social life and embeddedness in the field (Clifford,
1986; Harrison, 2010). This provided the scope to investigate a diverse range of experiences
and perspectives, and to examine how community housing organisations (CHOs) can
facilitate experiences valued by the tenants at their housing sites. This builds on existing
scholarship by providing insights into the nuances of living in mixed-tenure housing by
‘grasping the intricacies of life in that setting’ (Cunliffe, 2010, p. 231). The aim of this
research is to examine what social and affordable mixed-tenure community housing can offer
the people living there. Throughout the data collection and inductive analysis, both social and
affordable tenant accounts revealed that the concept of ‘home’ was a central concern. In
response to this, the research question iteratively evolved to become: how do social and
affordable housing tenants construct their notion of ‘home’ in mixed-tenure community
housing?
The sub-questions that guided my research are:
1) How do social and affordable tenants experience their home?
2) What value do social and affordable tenants assign to these experiences of home?
3) What factors facilitate, inhibit, and/or contribute to these experiences of home?
This chapter provides the rationale for using a qualitative multimethod approach. I then
provide an overview of Unison Housing, who were the research partner, and the two
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neighbourhoods and housing sites included in the research, before outlining the method and
analytical approach. Finally, I present the limitations of the method as well as the ethical
considerations.
4.2 Rationale for a qualitative multimethod approach
A central contribution of this thesis is to explore the benefits of social and affordable mixed-
tenure community housing as understood by the people who live there. I do this by
investigating how tenants perceive the value derived from their everyday interactions with
their homes, each other, the CHO, their housing site, and their neighbourhood. My research
was interested in how tenants make meaning and understand their interactions within these
spatial contexts. Such explorations are best undertaken using a qualitative methodology.
Liamputtong (2020, p. 18) argues qualitative research is required when there is a need to
‘understand the contexts or settings that play a crucial role in the lives of the research
participants’. This is because qualitative methodology is interested in how individuals
experience, make sense of, and assign meaning to the world in which they live (Creswell &
Poth, 2018; Liamputtong, 2020). Additionally, Creswell and Poth (2017) note that qualitative
research can prioritise the perspective of the research participants, rather than the research
being informed by literature, or in the case of this research, mixed-tenure policy objectives
and the body of scholarly work that has evaluated outcomes in relation to these objectives. In
this sense, qualitative enquiry can give voice to those whose perspectives have not previously
been included or prioritised (Creswell & Poth, 2018; Liamputtong, 2020). As such, a
qualitative approach is appropriate for this point of enquiry that sits outside dominant mixed-
tenure research, where tenant voices have been mostly limited to speaking about their
experiences in relation to mixed-tenure policy intentions. Instead, my research aims to centre
the lived experience of community housing tenants and what mixed-tenure community
housing means to them.
The qualitative approach is underpinned by the philosophical assumptions of social
constructivism that acknowledges the subjectiveness of experiences and meanings (Creswell
& Poth, 2018; Flick, 2018; Marvasti, 2004). Here, meaning is constructed by interacting with
others and with settings or contexts, and is informed by social, historical, and cultural norms
(Creswell & Poth, 2018; Flick, 2018; Marvasti, 2004). The assumptions of social
constructivism provide scope to wrestle with the complexities that arise from multiple
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viewpoints when exploring how participants construct meaning of their situations (Creswell
& Poth, 2018; Flick, 2018). These philosophical assumptions allow for engaging with the
diversity of people who live in community housing, and to consider their diverse social,
cultural, and historical contexts within the sociopolitical circumstances of community
housing. Additionally, the assumptions provide space to consider how the sociopolitical
circumstances shape participant experiences and the meaning they assign to their experiences.
Qualitative research is a legitimate and appropriate tool but requires a demonstration of
reliability and trustworthiness in the interpretation of the qualitative data (Liamputtong,
2020). Reflexivity is one approach used to ensure trustworthiness and reliability in how
researchers interpret the perspectives of research participants. Social constructivism
acknowledges how the researcher’s position informs the interpretation of participant
experiences (Creswell & Poth, 2018). Indeed, qualitative researchers reject the notion of
objectivity within this approach and instead acknowledge how our experiences, beliefs, and
personal history may influence data collection and interpretation, and it is this
acknowledgement that brings trustworthiness to the findings (Liamputtong, 2020).
Considering this, I reflected on my own professional experience as a social worker working
with people seeking asylum, settlement support with refugees, in veteran and disability
support, and in youth homelessness. Through this work I came to this research aware of the
necessity of housing and the struggle that marginalised population groups face when trying to
secure this primary need, as well as the social and political challenges in navigating and
advocating within systems for access to affordable and appropriate housing. Experience as a
social worker also brings experience in reflexive practice, where it is common practice to
consider, explore, and reflect on how our own experiences and beliefs influence our
interactions with the people we are working with (Ide & Boddoe, 2024; Watts, 2019).
Additionally, the use of person-centred practice in social work that prioritises the needs and
preferences as identified by the person receiving support means that I came to the research
well-practised in identifying and giving prominence to the truth and reality as constructed by
the research participants. In this sense, reflexivity was used to understand what brought me to
the research and as an ongoing process throughout data collection and analysis to ensure that
the central goal of the thesis was achieved.
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Although not primarily an ethnographic study, the research included my presence at two
different housing sites one day per week, building informal connections with tenants and
staff, and seeking to understand daily life. As such, my methodology was guided by
ethnographic principles outlined by Clifford (1989), Cunliffe (2010), Dubois (2009), and
Scott-Jones and Watt (2010). Ethnographic research is inherently place specific and consists
of the researcher entering the field and being located there to create thick descriptions of field
settings and the actions within the field (Cunliffe, 2010; Scott-Jones & Watt, 2010). This was
necessary for understanding how the social and material space, and relationships within
everyday life, influenced tenant experiences. The use of ethnographic observation allowed for
the use of, and the interactions within, space to be captured.
4.3 Research fields
4.3.1 Unison Housing
Unison Housing (Unison) is one of Victoria’s largest community housing associations. It
delivers a range of services, including social and affordable housing, commercial property,
owners corporation management, and private rental and homelessness support services.
RMIT University and Unison established a seven-year research partnership in 2017, aimed at
informing housing and homelessness best practice and policies. My study is one of three
PhDs funded through the partnership. Support for accessing the housing sites, organisational
documents, staff, and tenants was provided through this partnership.
Unison was established as a housing association in 2017 after a merger between Yarra
Community Housing (YCH) and Urban Communities. YCH formed in 1996, evolving from a
cooperative between The Brotherhood of St Laurence, Melbourne City Mission,
Wintringham, North Yarra Community Health, and Bedford Street Outreach Services, and in
2008 became a housing association. YCH had a focus on supporting marginalised people to
exit homelessness and maintain housing, particularly single men. YCH merged with Urban
Communities to support commercial growth, providing additional income streams to support
their services and tenants. Urban Communities was established in 2002 by the Victorian State
Government and developer Becton Group Holdings’ Kensington Management Company to
provide on-site management to the Kensington public housing estate redevelopment project,
one of the first public housing estates to be redeveloped by the then Bracks Victorian Labor
Government. Urban Communities was also appointed to manage other public housing estate
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redevelopment projects in Victoria, including sites in Caulfield, Fitzroy, and Coburg, as well
as one site in Adelaide, South Australia. By the time of the merger, Urban Communities had
grown its reputation in the sector for managing medium- to high-density mixed-tenure estates
that combined social, affordable, and private housing, providing housing management
services and place-making practices that focused on community engagement. Unison retains
the missions from both organisations—supporting and housing vulnerable people while
operating commercial services and building communities that thrive.
In 2019, at the time of data collection, Unison owned and managed eight medium-density7
social and affordable mixed-tenure sites made up of two- or three-storey, low-level
apartments, with between nine to 18 dwellings at each site. Unison also owned and managed
six medium-to-high density social and affordable mixed-tenure housing sites. Each site was
made up of at least one apartment building of four or more storeys, with between 52 and 104
dwellings at each site, and each had an on-site Unison office. Twelve sites were situated
within the inner north and western suburbs of Melbourne, while the other two sites were
approximately 17km from Melbourne’s CBD. After reviewing the characteristics of each site,
I decided to include medium-to-high density housing sites that would more likely reflect
future housing development and that could better address the undersupply of both social and
affordable housing in Victoria. Of the six medium-to-high density housing sites, I chose two
sites that I have given the pseudonyms ‘North-West Burb’ and ‘North-East Burb’.
The two neighbourhoods were similar in distance, approximately 17 kilometres, from the
Melbourne CBD and both neighbourhoods had comparable access to amenities such as
hospitals, schools, public transport, and shops. However, the neighbourhoods differed in
socioeconomic status and the social advantages and disadvantages associated with this. The
intent of having contrasting neighbourhoods was to conduct a deeper examination into the
role that place, including neighbourhood, has in shaping tenant experiences, and to consider
the role of housing provision within spatially different contexts. I turn now to provide an
overview of the two suburbs that the housing sites were positioned within.
7 AHURI (n.d.) define high-density housing as multi-storey apartment buildings, medium-density housing as
attached townhouses and low-level apartment buildings of three or four storeys, and low-density housing as
standalone, detached housing.
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4.3.2 North-West Burb
There are two key macro trends that have shaped the contemporary make-up of North-West
Burb: public housing development and the impact of post-industrialisation. Both trends have
contributed to North-West Burb’s experience of social disadvantage and associated
stigmatisation.
Historian Andrew Lemon (1982) argues North-West Burb has been shaped by bureaucracies
since the end of World War I, either by intent of, or omission from, housing policies that
shaped a local population to be poorer than average, with limited access to education and
health care. In the period between the end of World War I to the early 1950s, both private and
public development in North-West Burb was characterised by insufficient planning and
underinvestment in local infrastructure that paved the way for social deprivation (Lemon,
1982). Then, in 1951, the state government acquired the land for housing commission stock.
Again, development was ad hoc. There was rapid growth in housing without the local
amenities to support the growing population such as schools, health services, and public
recreation. While the state government’s interest in the area waned in the 1960s, by the mid-
1970s resistance against high-rise developments occurring in the inner-city suburbs reignited
the state government’s interest in developing more housing commission properties in and
around North-West Burb. Like the rest of Victoria, investment in social housing steadily
declined from then onwards (Hayward, 1996). As examined in Chapter Two, numerous
inner-city public housing estates have been redeveloped since the early 2000s. North-West
Burb, with its outer suburban location, has not been included in this. However, more recently,
the Victorian Government has invested in the area with plans to build 120 new social housing
dwellings on what they have called an ‘underutilised site’ in North-West Burb (Homes
Victoria, 2025c).
The manufacturing industry also played a significant role in shaping North-West Burb. In the
1960s, industrial investment as a manufacturing hub created an employed, working-class area
(O’Hanlon, 2018). However, industrial economic restructuring during the 1980s and 1990s
and subsequent factory closures had a severe impact on local unemployment rates (O’Hanlon,
2018). By 2016, only 53.5% of employment-aged residents were in the labour force, and of
these, only 50% were in full-time work (O’Hanlon, 2018). O’Hanlon (2018, p. 58) described
the area as changing from a former working-class area to a ‘welfare ghetto’. Similarly,
historian Mark Peel (2003) argues that media representations throughout this restructuring
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period framed North-West Burb as a place of ‘looming social crisis’ (p. 61), stigmatising the
area and its residents through repeated reporting of criminal and problematic behaviour that
was associated with social deprivation. O’Hanlon (2018) notes that North-West Burb still had
large areas with unused ex-industrial land and major gaps in employment prospects for an
unskilled local workforce.
Over the last decade, North-West Burb has been included in the Victorian Government’s
(2022) revitalisation project. The Victorian Government (2022) promotes that there has been
mass investment in ‘several major infrastructure projects’ in the past 10 years, and the area
now has appropriate local amenities, including a hospital, schools, and public transport. This
is planned to continue, with investment in education facilities, industry job pathways, town
hall redevelopment, and investment in public events and activities (Victorian Government,
2022). However, this revitalisation is in the context of the area experiencing severe, multiple,
and persistent disadvantage. The ‘Dropping off the Edge’ report (Tanton et al., 2021), the
national report on entrenched location-based disadvantage, ranked North-West Burb in the
top 5% of most disadvantaged areas in the state across eight or more measures. This included
factors such as low income, overcrowding, prison admissions, long-term unemployment,
early school leavers, as well as environmental factors such as heat stress and low tree
coverage (Tanton et al., 2021). The area also experiences persistent disadvantage, that is,
remaining disadvantaged across timepoints, between 2015 and 2021. This speaks to the
enduring impact that, in part, decades-long housing policies and labour market changes can
have on a local population, and the revitalisation that is needed from the state government.
4.3.3 North-East Burb
There has been much less analysis on North-East Burb and its population compared to North-
West Burb. This is possibly due to the area not being a focus of government policy compared
to the more economically deprived North-West Burb. Nor has the area been specifically
affected by post-industrialisation and economic restructuring following the dismantling of
manufacturing hubs around Melbourne. However, the area has been of some interest to
historians who have provided earlier accounts. Such accounts have reported that since
colonial settlement, North-East Burb has been an area enjoyed by Melbourne’s more affluent
population (Davison, 2004; Garden, 1972). During the 1800s it was a ‘distinctly aristocratic
locality’ (Garden, 1972, p. 24), used as a country residence by Melbournian elites (Butler,
1985), and an artistic retreat for bohemians in the latter half of the same century (Davison,
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2004). Although there was a boom in post-war development, North-East Burb was still
retained as a semi-rural retreat for the ‘city’s business and professional elite’ (Davison, 2004,
p. 226). While the population more than doubled between the end of World War II and the
1960s, this was accompanied with a growth in local amenities such as schools (Victorian
Places, 2015). However, the population growth was still significantly less than that of North-
West Burb (Lemon, 1982; Victorian Places, 2015).
Housing development throughout the 20th century is a key contrasting factor between North-
West and North-East Burbs that has helped shape the socioeconomic position of the suburbs.
North-East and North-West Burbs have a shared history of having large pockets of land
purchased by property developers and then subdivided. However, in North-East Burb, the
purchasing of subdivided blocks was by more affluent people (Butler, 1985). While North-
West Burb was struggling with emerging slum areas from subpar living conditions after
World War I (Lemon, 1982), North-East Burb’s housing development consisted of
homesteads and estates, some of which are still standing and are protected under heritage
listing (Butler, 1985). During the post-World War I housing development, North-East Burb’s
local council had additional by-laws on top of state building regulations that ensured more
spacious and better quality housing development. By the 1950s, North-East Burb was a hub
of architectural innovation (Butler, 1985), an indication of considered and planned private
housing development that contrasted with the ad hoc and public development of North-West
Burb throughout the same period (Lemon, 1982).
Critiques of the adequacy of broader neighbourhood amenities, such as schools and public
recreation, were not included in these historical accounts. The representation of North-East
Burb within contemporary reports indicates that this omission may suggest such requirements
were at least sufficient. The local council strategic plans emphasise the council’s role in
sustaining the current quality of life enjoyed in the area. For example, the council outlines its
strategy to ‘keep [council area] a great place to work, live and play’ and ‘maintaining the
provision and quality of community services’ (Banyule City Council, 2017, p. 4). This
contrasts with the revitalisation program of North-West Burb that aims to significantly
improve local amenities and opportunities within the area considering prolonged
underinvestment in the suburb.
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4.3.4 Current comparison of North-West and North-East Burbs
The historical overviews of North-West and North-East Burbs contribute to understanding
the contemporary populations of the two suburbs. The key demographic data displayed in
Table 2 compare the socioeconomic factors of the two suburbs, as well as state and national
populations at the time of data collection. North-West Burb was significantly more populated
compared to North-East Burb. North-West Burb’s median weekly personal and household
income was below state and national medians. In fact, the personal income median was
almost half of the state and national personal income median. North-West Burb also had
lower levels of education compared to the state and national populations, while the suburb’s
unemployment rate was double that of state and national rates. Conversely, both North-East
Burb’s personal and household income median was higher than the state and national median,
while personal median income was almost 60% higher, and household median income almost
40% higher, than North-West Burb’s. North-East Burb also had higher levels of education
than state and national averages, and had a higher rate of employment, including full-time
employment, compared to North-West Burb.
Table 2 also shows how the two neighbourhoods differed in terms of population diversity.
More than half of North-West Burb residents were born overseas and 67.5% of households
spoke a language other than English. North-East Burb aligned with state and national
diversity levels, with just over 30% of residents born overseas, and 28% of households
speaking a language other than English. This shows how North-West Burb was more
culturally diverse, but economically worse off, not just when compared to North-East Burb,
but also when compared to state and national populations. Further, this illustrates how North-
East Burb was educationally and economically better off compared to state and national
populations.
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Table 2
Suburb, state, and national population demographic data
North-West
Burb
North-East
Burb
Victoria Australia
Population (total) 74,380 7,360
Level of highest education attainment, as a percentage of suburb population
Bachelor Degree & above 18.7 47 29.2 26.3
Advanced Diploma & Diploma
level
7.7 8.6 9.8 9.4
Certificate level IV 2.2 2.7 3.4 3.5
Certificate level III 8.2 6.9 10.9 12.6
Year 12 18.3 12 14.9 14.9
Year 9 or below 14.8 5.3 7.9 7.2
Cultural diversity, as a percentage of suburb population
Born in Australia 46.4 67.7 65 66.9
English only used at home 29.7 72.1 67.2 72.0
Households where a non-English
language is used
67.5 28.4 30.2 24.8
Employment of people aged 15 years and over, as a percentage of suburb population
Not in the labour force 44.8 28.8 32.2 33.1
Full-time work 48.2 59.7 56.2 55.9
Part-time work 33.6 30.2 32.3 31.2
Away from work 7.5 6.1 6.5 7.8
Unemployed 10.6 4.3 5.0 5.1
Median weekly income (15+)
Personal $486 $1,086 $803 $805
Household $1,281 $2,012 $1,759 $1,746
Source: ABS, 2018a, 2018b.
4.3.5 Housing sites
The two housing sites included in the study were mixed-tenure housing sites delivered by
Unison. The housing sites were comparable regarding dwelling and tenancy types, and tenant
73
demographics, but the governance and material composition of the housing sites differed
significantly. As with comparing the neighbourhoods, examining these governing and
material differences provides greater insight into the factors that inform tenant experiences of
living in community housing.
4.3.5.1 Site descriptions
Both housing sites were within walking distance to hospitals, shops, and transport hubs, but
the physical structures of the sites were distinct. The map of North-East Burb displayed in
Figure 2 shows how the site consisted of two seven-storey medium-density apartment
buildings, connected by an enclosed corridor. There was one entrance at the front of the
building, accessible via tenant security key fobs. There was also an intercom that visitors
could use to contact tenants. There was a tenant underground car park that was shared with a
neighbouring business, also only accessible with a security key fob. The site office was next
to the housing site entrance, with its own street level door that was open four days a week.
The housing site’s local external service provider (LESP—support workers from a local
social and community services organisation) worked from the office one morning a fortnight,
primarily offering individual support work with single mothers. The green space that
wrapped around the back section of the building was made up of the courtyards of individual
dwellings. The community room on the ground floor was open four afternoons a week during
office hours. There was a mail room and elevator inside the front entrance, with neither
detailed on the map. The corridors on each floor were enclosed and only accessible via a
security key fob used either in the elevator or stairs.
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Figure 2
Map of North-East Burb
Figure 3
Map of North-West Burb
The map of North-West Burb displayed in Figure 3 shows that the housing site was made up
of two, four-storey apartment blocks, with family households on one side, and single-person
households on the other. The dwellings on each floor led onto open-air corridors that
overlooked the shared space between the two buildings. The floors were accessible via an
elevator and there were stairwells at each end. Elevator use required a security key fob to
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access the floors, but the floors could also be accessed without a security key fob via the
open-air stairways at the end of each corridor. The fence in the shared space separated the
two buildings. The fence had a one-way security gate that enabled the single-person
households to enter the shared space. The shared space between the buildings had a barbeque,
seating area, and a playground. The green space at the back of the single side and the
vegetable garden was also shared space. There were four entrances to the housing site: two at
the front and two at the rear. They required a security key fob to enter but during fieldwork
the doors were often ajar or were climbed over by people to enter the housing site. There
were intercoms at the front entrances; however, these were reported as broken. The site office
was only accessible through the community room and was open two days a week. The
community room was accessible from the street level and from the shared space and was
opened one day a week by the LESP. The LESP used the community room to host a
foodbank one morning a week, a children’s art group one afternoon a month, and individual
tenant support one afternoon a week. There was a tenant car park at the rear of the housing
site which was also accessible to non-tenants.
4.3.5.2 Dwelling and tenancy types
As displayed in Table 3, both sites had a range of units that catered for singles, couples, and
families with children. The North-East Burb property was unique to the Unison mixed-tenure
sites, as it was the only site where the percentage of affordable housing dwellings was more
than social housing dwellings. North-West Burb was more representative of other Unison
sites, with an average 70:30 ratio of social housing to affordable housing.
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Table 3
Property comparison by dwelling size and tenancy type
North-West Burb North-East Burb
Total no. of units 84 114
Social units (% of total units) 65 45
Dwelling size 1-bedroom units
35 24
2-bedroom units
14 24
3-bedroom units
6 3
Affordable units (% of total units) 35 55
Dwelling size 1-bedroom units
13 20
2-bedroom units
6 40
3-bedroom units
10 3
4.3.5.3 Tenant demographics
The age range and gender balance were similar at both sites (Table 4), although North-East
Burb had a greater percentage of tenants who identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait
Islander, while North-West Burb had a greater number of tenants born overseas and of a non-
English speaking background.
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Table 4
Primary tenant demographic comparison by property and tenancy type ab
North-West Burb North-East Burb
Age in years Age range
19–83 17–83
Average
43.15 (SD 12.80) 43.12 (SD 13.83)
Gender c Male
47.0% 44.0%
Female
53.0% 56.0%
Aboriginal &/or Torres Strait
Islander
2.4% 18.0%
Place of Origin Australia
45.0% 58.0%
Overseas
55.0% 42.0%
Non-English-speaking background 48.0% 30.0%
a Represents tenants as of November 2018, and may have changed throughout research process.
b Percentages reported in the table are a percentage of the total number of tenants per housing site.
c Only male and female gender types recorded.
4.3.5.4 Tenant rents and income
Social Housing tenants paid 30% of their income plus Commonwealth Rent Assistance as
rent, and 15% of Family Tax Benefit if applicable. These percentages varied depending on
the type of household, Centrelink payment received, and housing type. For eligibility, tenants
must have registered through the Victorian Housing Register. Eligibility was in line with the
Department of Health and Human services eligibility guidelines (Unison Housing, 2025b).
Affordable Housing tenants paid up to 75% of market rate, up to a maximum of 30% of their
income. For eligibility, tenants had to be employed and have an annual income range between
$41,551 and $62,310 for a single person. This range increased with household size (Unison
Housing, 2025a).
4.4 Methods
Using multiple qualitative methods is useful when conducting a complex study that requires
multiple viewpoints to understand experience within a particular context (Brewer & Hunter,
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2006; Liamputtong, 2020). This section details the four methods I used to understand the
lived experiences at North-East and North-West Burbs: 1) document analysis, 2) focus
groups, 3) ethnographic observation, and 4) photo-elicited and semi-structured ethnographic
interviews.
4.4.1 Document analysis
The first stage of the research was a document analysis. Document analysis is a common
method in multimethod and ethnographic research because such sources provide records and
insights into the rules, decisions, and social constructions of particular places (Hammersely &
Atkinson, 2019). Unison documents provided the policy scope for how Unison governance of
the housing sites and their service delivery shaped social and affordable tenants’ experiences
of their homes. The inclusion criteria included policies, procedures, and Unison documents
that related to tenancy management and housing site management. Documents were excluded
if the policy or procedure only pertained to staff, such as staff conduct policies as these
policies concerned how Unison govern staff rather than Unison’s governing of housing sites
and tenants. Additionally, policies that stipulated legal requirements only, such as the
Information privacy policy, were excluded as they did not provide insight into how Unison
perceive and enact their role as a housing provider. A total of 34 documents were analysed,
including policies and procedures, the tenancy management practice framework, and annual
reports from Unison. As Unison became a community housing association in 2017 after
Yarra Community Housing and Urban Communities Ltd. merged, annual reports from these
two organisations from the three preceding years were also included in the analysis as they
provided insight into the rationale for the merge, and the values and mission of the newly
formed Unison. Annual reports and strategic plans were sourced from Unison’s website.
Policies and procedures were sourced from Unison via a staff member. I met with the staff
member to discuss relevant documents, and requested any policies or procedures that met the
inclusion criteria. After reviewing these, further relevant policies and procedures were
sourced from the Unison staff member. The documents were uploaded into NVivo 12 for
analysis. NVivo 12 is a qualitative data analysis program that assists with the organisation
and analysis of unstructured data, including text and visual data (Davidson, 2018). The
documents were then thematically analysed to develop the themes and questions of the focus
groups. Three main working themes informed the focus groups: ‘the role of individual
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tenancy management’, ‘the role of community building’, and ‘the role of facilitating mixed-
tenure housing’.
.
4.4.2 Focus groups
Focus groups with staff were used to explore the context where tenants lived by capturing
experiences, topics, and perspectives that are difficult to observe or that rarely occur (Suter,
2000). As such, this method provides insights into focused topics that add to the description
of social life (Suter, 2000). Focus groups provide an opportunity for issues to be voiced and
for participants to explore and clarify their perspectives which may otherwise be unavailable
in, for example, an interview format (Liamputtong, 2011). Further, focus groups reveal how
particular groups think about and structure their experience, drawing attention to group
priorities and perspectives (Smithson, 2008). As such, focus groups were an apt method to
investigate Unison staff experiences and perceptions to contribute to understanding the social
life at the two housing sites. Convenience sampling was used by emailing relevant staff
members, identified through the RMIT-Unison partnership, and inviting them to participate
in a focus group. Interested staff were emailed a Participant Information and Consent Form,
and provided the opportunity to ask any questions before the focus groups (see Appendix A).
Focus groups ran for 90 minutes. Two focus groups were held at Unison office sites with
place-managers and team leaders, and the third focus group with executive staff was held
online due to COVID-19 restrictions being in place.
Derived from the document analysis and thus using terminology familiar to the organisation,
focus groups with place-managers and team leaders explored how they conceptualised
tenancies, place-management, and community, and how they understood their role in
providing tenancy support and facilitating community (see Appendix B). Place-managers are
tasked with delivering individual tenancy management and managing the social and physical
space in which the tenants reside, and therefore influence or shape, to a degree, how tenants
can experience their homes, and the value they derive from their tenancy. Executive staff
were also included to explore the vision and intent of housing provision, tenant support, and
community facilitation at a strategic organisational level (see Appendix C). Executive staff
have a unique knowledge base in understanding the broader context of these different
components of housing delivery and how these components impact on organisational
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sustainability. Therefore, how the place-managers, team leaders, and executive staff
perceived their role and Unison’s role as an organisation in creating places that benefit social
and affordable tenants was relevant to this research.
A total of 12 staff members participated across the three focus groups: six place-managers
(Unison staff, based on site, who manage tenancy and property services) and three team
leaders participated across two sessions. The third focus group was held with three executive
staff. Length of staff employment varied from three months to eight years. Place-managers’
property portfolios included transitional properties, rooming houses, standalone properties,
and mixed-tenure properties. Those who had been employed longer had worked across
numerous property types, while more recently employed staff only managed mixed-tenure
properties. Staff included across the three focus groups had different employment
backgrounds, including in office administration, commercial property management, public
housing tenancy management, and employment with other not-for-profit housing
organisations. Staff accounts have been used to answer research sub-question three: what
factors facilitate, inhibit, and/or contribute to these experiences of home? Staff accounts were
not used to understand how tenant participants8 experienced their housing sites, but rather,
provided a deeper understanding of the experiences, issues, and challenges as identified by
the tenant participants. The focus groups were audio-recorded, transcribed, and uploaded into
NVivo 12 for analysis.
4.4.3 Ethnographic observation
Ethnographic observation allows the researcher to investigate, experience, and make sense of
people’s behaviour within their own environment (Emerson et al., 2001; Suter, 2000). In
doing so, the researcher can represent the everyday life of particular social groups (Emerson
et al., 2001; Suter, 2000). This is done by the researcher entering the environments, or fields,
of those being observed (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2019; O’Reilly, 2009). Tenants at both
sites were provided information about the observation and an invitation to participate in an
interview through a mailout (see Appendix D). I worked with the place-managers to identify
what languages were used in households where no English was used. The place-managers
identified Malay at North-East Burb and Amharic at North-West Burb, and so research
8 I use the term ‘tenant participant’ to delineate between the tenants who participated in this research by doing
an interview and other tenants at Unison properties.
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information was translated and distributed in these languages at their respective sites.
Observation for this research took place across the two housing sites in communal spaces
when attending site events and when accessing the office. This also included informal
interactions I had with tenants, staff, social visitors, and staff from LESP. The observation ran
for a period of seven months and overlapped with interviews. Each site was visited one day
per week. Occasionally, this was increased, depending on meetings and activities on-site. The
office at North-East Burb was open four days per week, and it was the preference of the
place-manager that I only attend when the office was open. Due to the lack of communal
space, much of the observation took place in the site office or outside at the front entrance.
The office at North-West Burb was open two days a week, and while the place-manager did
not have a preference for when I could attend the site, I was only able to have access to the
community room and office when the place-manager was present. Numerous people at the
site spoke to me about violent incidents that had occurred at North-West Burb, including
tenants and their visitors having possession of guns, hearing gunfire shots, and assaults of
tenants and visitors. It was determined that, for safety reasons, my time at this site was
limited to office hours to ensure I would have access to the office.
The observation of the tenants and the physical space provided insights into the social
arrangements at the research sites, and the modes of order, action, and power. It was an
opportunity to understand how tenants interacted with one another and with staff, and how
the space was used or functioned within these social relationships. It also provided insight
into how staff facilitated and managed place and how they responded to tenants. The
observation phase contributed to answering research sub-question one: how do social and
affordable housing tenants experience home? Observing interactions between the different
actors provided insight into the social and material dimensions of home, such as how the built
environment, particularly shared spaces, were used and maintained.
Observation not only includes gaining access to, and becoming immersed within, the field but
also capturing and producing written accounts of the field (Emerson et al., 2001). There are
numerous styles and strategies to do this (Emerson et al., 2001). The fieldnotes for this
research included descriptive notes—the who, what, when, where, how of human activity—
as well as subjective notes, initial impressions of key events, incidents observed, the
observer’s personal reaction, what people in the setting treated as especially important, and
any unusual happenings that departed from routine and the ordinary (Emerson et al., 2001).
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In total, fieldnote data included observation, face-to-face informal interactions, phone calls,
text messages, and emails. I also spent time with tenant participants off-site at a local café,
and I included observed tenant interaction from there. The fieldnotes were recorded in the
note taking program, Evernote, and then uploaded into NVivo 12 for coding and analysis (see
template in Appendix E).
4.4.4 Interviews
4.4.4.1 Recruitment for interviews
A strength of interviewing that is guided by ethnographic principles is that an ongoing
relationship between the interviewer and the interviewee is established (Heyl, 2001). As such,
recruitment for interviews began during the observation phase. This allowed me to build
relationships with tenant participants over time. As detailed above, recruitment was also done
through a mailout to tenants at the two housing sites. Only tenants who had been residing at
the site for nine months or more were included in the interviews. This criterion was deemed
necessary for two reasons. First, as the study is looking at what tenants can derive from their
tenancies, tenant participants required a timeframe long enough to have moved to the site and
to have settled in. Second, there were two other studies taking place at Unison with new
tenancies. Only including tenants who had resided at the property for nine months or more
ensured the same tenants were not being asked to participate in multiple studies.
I was able to meet the tenant participants at least three times before the interview. With some,
I had several informal interactions prior to the interview. This helped build rapport with the
tenant participants, and I was able to use these interactions as prompts in the interviews.
4.4.4.2 Interview techniques
Interviews were used to gain tenant participant perspectives on how they experienced the
social life, the governance of the research sites, and the broader neighbourhood. There is no
single method of interviewing within qualitative research (Creswell & Poth, 2018;
Liamputtong, 2020). I drew on two interview techniques that were most appropriate for each
individual tenant participant: photo-elicited and semi-structured.
Photo-elicited interviews
Photo-elicited interviewing involves tenant participants taking photos of their everyday
experience, with these photos then used as a focal point that guides the interview discussion
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(Stout & Collins, 2024; van der Hoorn, 2019). The use of photos creates greater space for the
interviewee to communicate their personal interpretation, to tell their own stories, and to
reveal the nuances of place (Lapenta, 2011; Stout & Collins, 2024; Tinkler, 2014).
Additionally, it provides greater ethnographic access by capturing experiences and places
where the researcher has limited or no access (van der Hoorn, 2019).
Tenant participants using the photo-elicited method were provided with a disposable camera
with which to take photos. One tenant participant used both the disposable camera and their
mobile phone to take photos. Instructions on how to use the camera and information on
ethical visual research that was informed by Cox et al. (2014) were also provided and
discussed, as well as a list of themes to guide the photo-taking (see Appendix F). The tenant
participants were asked to focus on three broad themes: themselves, their neighbours, and
their neighbourhood. The guide asked tenant participants to consider what was important to
them in their daily lives. Tenant participants took between two to four weeks to take the
photos. I then collected the cameras with the understanding we would be discussing the
photos together once developed. The developed photos were used as prompts for tenant
participants to communicate their experiences at the housing site. Tenant participants kept a
copy of their photos after the interview. However, this approach was met with some
hesitation by some, so for those tenant participants semi-structured interviews were used
instead.
Semi-structured interviews
The use of semi-structured interviews within qualitative research is a common approach
(Liamputtong, 2020; van der Hoorn, 2019). Semi-structured interviews are conducted using
an interview guide made up of high-level questions (Liamputtong, 2020; van der Hoorn,
2019). The semi-structured nature provides flexibility and scope for research participants to
share what is important to them, and for the researcher to explore themes and topics raised by
the participant while remaining focused on the research topic (Given, 2008; Liamputtong,
2020; van der Hoorn, 2019). I developed an interview guide based on the themes provided to
tenant participants who participated in the photo-elicited interview technique so that there
was consistency between the two groups (see Appendix G). This included questions and
prompts about what tenant participants considered important in their daily lives, about their
neighbours, and about their neighbourhood.
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Both types of interviews took on average 90 minutes but ranged between 45 minutes to one
hour and 45 minutes. Eight interviews took place in the community rooms at each site and
three interviews were conducted over the phone. Ten interviews were audio-recorded and
transcribed. One tenant participant declined to be audio-recorded, so notes were taken during
the interview and written up afterwards. The interview notes and transcriptions were then
uploaded into NVivo 12 for coding and analysis. Tenant participant accounts revealed the
significance of their homes to them. Both sets of interviews were used to answer all three
research sub-questions, identifying how home was experienced, the value tenant participants
derived from their homes, and the factors that facilitated, inhibited and/or contributed to their
experiences.
4.4.4.3 Tenant participants
In total, 11 tenant participants participated in the research. Five tenant participants used the
photo-elicited method, and six tenant participants used the semi-structured interview method.
Below are the biographical overviews of the 11 tenant participants. There were six female
and five male tenant participants, ageing in range from 26 to 67 years old. Four of the tenant
participants were from North-East Burb, all of whom were single, and seven tenant
participants were from North-West Burb, of whom three were in families and four were
single. Three tenant participants were born overseas, one tenant participant identified as
Aboriginal Australian, and five tenant participants spoke a language other than English. One
tenant participant required an interpreter for the interview. The length of time tenant
participants had been residing in their properties varied between nine months and nine years.
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Table 5
Tenant participant biographies at North-East and North-West Burbs
Tenant participant biographies
North-East Burb
Louisa, a 50-year-old Aboriginal women, had resided at North-East Burb as a social tenant for nine
years. Before moving to North-East Burb, Louisa had resided at another Unison property. When I
first met Louisa, she was unemployed and receiving Newstart9 allowance but had since gained part-
time employment. Louisa lived alone. She had children and grandchildren living locally, as well as
family living regionally and interstate.
Harry was a 66-year-old second-generation Eastern-European Australian male. Harry had lived
alone at North-East Burb for eight years as a social tenant. He had moved to North-East Burb after
being evicted from a private rental property. Harry received the age pension. He had a past career
in the entertainment industry, but after bankruptcy and experiencing chronic physical and mental
health conditions, was unable to continue employment. Harry reported being an insomniac due to
the hours he used to work.
Coraline, a 54-year-old Anglo-Australian woman, resided with her male partner as affordable
tenants. They had moved to North-East Burb two years prior after receiving a rent increase at their
previous private rental property. Coraline was unemployed and financially supported by her
partner. Coraline reported having unskilled work in the past. At the start of the study, Coraline was
engaged in a beauty therapy course but discontinued this to work on her own business plan.
Coraline grew up interstate in a nuclear family and spent time living abroad as an adult.
Robert, a 59-year-old social tenant, had resided with his cat at North-East Burb for two years.
Robert did not know his ethnic identity due to being orphaned as an infant, but suspected he was
Aboriginal. He had relocated there after his previous rooming house property was being renovated.
Robert received Newstart allowance from Centrelink. Robert had previously been employed, but
due to physical and mental health conditions, had difficulty finding and sustaining suitable
employment. Robert reported growing up in an orphanage, which he left when he was an
adolescent. Robert reported a long history of homelessness, including sleeping rough and couch
surfing. Robert had an adult daughter who lived with her mother.
North-West Burb
Monika, a 30-year-old Anglo-Australian woman, lived with her six-year-old child. Monika had
moved to North-West Burb four years prior as a social tenant after experiencing housing insecurity
associated with family violence. She had since moved between social and affordable tenancies due
to gaining employment. Monika worked part-time and received a parenting payment from
Centrelink. During the research period, Monika returned to study a diploma in community services
and was volunteering at a homelessness advocacy agency.
9 Newstart was the main income support payment for unemployed people aged between 22 years and the age
pension age. This was changed to be called the jobseeker payment in March 2020 (Services Australia, 2022).
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Table 5 - continued
Adrian, a 43-year-old second-generation European-Australian, was an affordable tenant who was
employed full-time. Adrian had lived at North-West Burb for four years with his pet dog. Before
moving to North-West Burb, Adrian said he had been working in a job where ‘money was good’
and had lived in a hotel for convenience. Adrian did not provide details on the circumstances that
led to the change in his income and subsequent move to North-West Burb.
Dorothy, a 48-year-old Anglo-Australian woman, was a social tenant who had lived at North-West
Burb for five years. Dorothy received the disability support pension. Before her health condition
prevented her from working, Dorothy was a teacher and had engaged in post-doctoral study. Before
moving to North-West Burb, Dorothy had been renting a bungalow in the private market in the
same area. Dorothy had endured a history of family violence, both in the family home growing up
and from a previous intimate relationship.
Emir, a 55-year-old Middle-Eastern male, had resided at North-West Burb for five years with his
cat. He was a social tenant who received the disability support pension. Emir migrated to Australia
as a young adult and previously had his own business but reported being ‘done over’ by his
business partner. This, and a heart condition, meant he required social housing. Emir reported a
good relationship with his adult daughter and ex-wife.
Oscar, a 26-year-old Anglo-Australian male, had been living at North-West Burb for nine months.
Oscar was a social tenant and received the disability support pension. Before moving to North-
West Burb, Oscar had been living in rooming housing unsupported. He was linked with North-
West Burb’s support partners and successfully applied for NDIS10 support. Oscar was in regular
contact with his mum, who lived in regional Victoria.
Fazia, a 35-year-old woman from Central Africa, was unsure of how long she had resided at North-
West Burb, but indicated it was for at least two years. Fazia had moved into North-West Burb as a
social tenant with her four children after leaving her husband. She had since reconciled the
relationship, and her husband had also moved in. Her husband worked full-time and they became
affordable tenants. Fazia’s youngest child had just started school and so Fazia was looking into
study options for herself.
Hanna, a 40-year-old woman from East Africa, was unsure of her tenancy type. In her three years
of living at North-West Burb she had gone from being unemployed and studying to being self-
employed, working full-time hours. Hanna’s employment history indicated she may have started
her tenancy as a social tenant and then become an affordable tenant once working full-time. Hanna
had migrated to Australia five years before, leaving her children behind with family. Before
moving to North-West Burb, Hanna had been living in private rental with flatmates. Throughout
the course of the research, Hanna’s children had been approved to join her in Australia.
4.4.5 Data analysis
Document analysis and fieldnotes were coded using NVivo 12. Focus groups and interviews
were audio-recorded and transcribed, and were also coded using NVivo 12. I transcribed the
focus groups and interviews, except for the executive focus group, which was done by a
10 National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) provides funding to eligible people with disability to pay for
supports, including services, items, and equipment. The NDIS was legislated by the Commonwealth
Government in 2013 and was rolled out across Australia by 2020 (NDIS, 2023).
87
professional transcription service. The listening and re-listening to the recordings while
transcribing allowed me to immerse myself in the data. It enabled me to include in the
transcript and associated reflective notes how particular experiences enacted different
responses, and to record participant pauses and silences. This approach is aligned with
ethnographically informed interviewing by being attuned to the non-dialogue data, ensuring a
more complete and thick account is captured (Heyl, 2001). This process also enabled me to
build on interview notes to draw attention to the experiences and issues that tenant
participants spoke about with fluency and animation. Within the focus groups, the process
drew attention to group dynamics, such as when staff echoed or built on each other, and when
they did not, as well as the points staff agreed on and the tones that underpinned the
agreements, such as enthusiasm or sarcasm. This process helped to facilitate my reflection on
the material and to take note of emerging themes and codes. Time constraints and available
funding meant it was more practical to outsource the transcription of the third focus group.
However, I still re-listened to and read that transcript numerous times to ensure I was as
familiar with this focus group as the other data.
The data sources were coded and analysed thematically. Thematic analysis classifies data into
patterns of cultural meaning, seeking, for example, commonalties or theoretical constructs
(Mills et al., 2010). This can be done deductively, classifying data based on pre-formulated,
or a priori themes (Gilgun, 2019), or inductively, constructing themes from data (Schwandt,
2007). A strength of qualitative research is that it allows for the synthesis of both deductive
and inductive analysis (Creswell & Poth, 2018). Analysis of the inductive coding of tenant
participant transcripts and observational fieldnotes revealed the notion of home as being most
significant. The significance of tenant participant histories in everyday life, and how these
histories shaped interactions with tenant participants’ homes, neighbours, and housing
governance also emerged from the inductive analysis. Deductive analysis was then conducted
using a priori themes based on the concept of ontological security and scholarship on home,
such as Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) conditions of home— constancy and predictability, and
privacy and control. The working themes from the document analysis and focus groups were
then re-visited. Deductive analysis was conducted using the themes from the tenant
participant data. This ensured that tenant perspectives remained at the centre of the analysis
and enabled a deeper examination of the themes and sub-themes identified in the tenant
participant accounts.
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Consistent with a qualitative approach, data analysis for this project was an ongoing and
iterative process (Gubrium & Holstein, 2014; Liamputtong, 2020). While data collection and
analysis were sequential to the four method phases (document analysis, focus groups,
observation and fieldnotes, photo-elicited and semi-structured interviews), the analysis
employed ‘working themes’, so data were revisited as themes were developed and refined.
Nvivo 12 was used in the initial deductive and inductive coding stages. As the conceptual
framework developed this was more efficient to do manually using Nvivo 12 as a system to
draw together the various data sources. Here, I used data triangulation.
Data triangulation is used in multiple method qualitative research to provide at least two
perspectives on a social issue or topic (Flick, 2018; Liamputtong, 2020). Data triangulation
can be used along several stages of the research process and is often used to increase validity
of qualitative research (Flick, 2018; Liamputtong, 2020). I used triangulation between the
different perspectives of staff and tenant participants to provide a richer and deeper insight
into the specific experiences that the tenant participants had identified as being important to
them. Here, tenant participant accounts formed the basis of the analysis. I then drew on
observation, and focus group and document analysis to help situate and contextualise tenant
participant experiences within broader systems, such as housing governance. This will be
illustrated throughout the following four find findings chapters, where these data sources
build on tenant participant accounts.
4.4.6 Limitations
The most significant limitation of this research method was the onset of the COVID-19
pandemic. The COVID-19 lockdown restrictions were introduced eight months into data
collection, in March 2020. Except for essential services, the restrictions required those living
in Melbourne to work from home, limited recreation time outside of the home to one to two
hours per day, and restricted travel to within five kilometres of people’s homes. Restrictions
were in place for a total of 292 days between March 2020 until October 2021 (Macreadie,
2022).11 Due to constraints in accessing the housing sites and without knowing how long
restrictions would be in place for, or the impact that ongoing restrictions would have on
11 There was a total of six mandated lockdown periods, the shortest being five consecutive days and the longest
being 111 consecutive days (Macreadie, 2022).
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tenant experiences, after two months into the first lockdown, my supervisory team and I
decided to discontinue both the interview and observation phase of data collection. The 11
completed interviews were short of the 20 intended in the initial research plan. However, due
to the multiple data sources, including informal interactions with tenant participants, and
photo-elicited and semi-structured interviews, the data collected before restrictions were
enacted were deemed sufficient for the analysis.
Observation informed by ethnographic principles requires immersion in the research field. As
detailed earlier, access to the two housing sites was limited to when staff were on site. This
meant that I could only observe the housing sites during office hours and when staff were
present, limiting a deeper immersion into the field during evenings and weekends. Further,
being situated within the office may have led to tenants associating me with staff rather than
as a neutral researcher, limiting or shaping what tenants were willing to share with me. As
noted earlier, this limitation was overcome by using photo-elicited and semi-structured
interviews that prioritised the tenant participants’ perspective and reinforced my neutrality as
a researcher. Restrictions to site access highlighted the importance of using multiple methods,
including photo-elicitation and semi-structured interviews, to gain access to the social life
being experienced outside of office hours and how private spaces are experienced and valued.
This gap was also addressed by interactions during observation with tenants, who spoke with
me about the unobserved hours.
Access to Unison documents were only available via a Unison staff member rather than being
publicly available documents that I could source myself. Therefore, a limitation of the
document analysis is the certainty as to whether the analysis included an exhaustive list of all
relevant documents. There may have been additional Unison policies, procedures or reports
that met the inclusion criteria but that were unavailable. However, as the purpose of the
document analysis was to inform the focus groups and to support and build on the analysis of
the other data collection methods, the impact of this limitation on the research was
minimised.
By nature of the group setting, anonymity in focus groups is always compromised by the
presence of other group members. This may have limited what staff were willing to share
within the group setting. Additionally, because this research project sits within the
partnership between RMIT and Unison, staff awareness that the research was endorsed by
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their employer may have influenced their responses. This limitation was mitigated, in part, by
place-managers having separate focus groups to the executive staff. This separation was used
to addressed power differences between the two levels of staff in order to foster the
conditions where participants could feel more comfortable to respond honestly. Still,
responses in the focus groups may have been moderated by participants. However, the
observation phase of data collection helped to overcome this constraint. By being situated
within the staff offices at North-East and North-West Burb, observations of staff practices
and conversations with the researcher in the office could corroborate, or not, responses in the
focus groups, building on understandings of staff practices and perspectives.
4.4.7 Ethics
Ethics approval was granted by the RMIT Human Research Ethics Committee (Application
No: 22111) and was categorised as ‘more than low risk’ (see Appendix H). This research had
risks that were managed in line with the Australian National Statement on Ethical Conduct in
Human Research (2018), namely the participant group of interest and the methods being
employed, in particular photo-elicited interviews, observation and focus groups.
One of the two participant groups included social and affordable tenants, whose tenancies
indicated they were experiencing vulnerabilities and disadvantage but who were all adults
with the capacity to make a decision about their involvement. Therefore, the recruitment
strategy respected the capacity of people to make their own decisions in line with general
ethical principles of the National Statement (Australian Research Council, 2018, p. 11).
The observation and the photo-elicited interviews presented particular risks in the method.
Observation within qualitative research raises concerns about consent for participation. This
was managed by all tenants receiving an information sheet in their letter box detailing the
research conducted on site prior to the research taking place. Further, signs were displayed on
site to alert tenants that observation was taking place. The use of photography in data
collection is consistent with the guidelines for ethical visual research methods (Cox et al.,
2014). The photography information sheet distributed to tenant participants detailed the
conditions for taking photos, covering privacy, confidentiality, and consent (such as not
taking photos of other people or their property without their consent or in a way whereby they
are identifiable), ownership, and the use of the photos. It also noted that photos should not be
exploitative, sexual, or contain nudity. The conditions of use were discussed face to face, and
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there was an opportunity for tenant participants to ask questions about anything unclear, or
where I felt the tenant participant was unclear of the conditions, an opportunity to further
explain.
As noted in the previous section, focus groups inherently lack anonymity from other
participants because of the group setting. This raises ethical considerations for
confidentiality. This risk was managed through the consent process. The consent form noted
that confidentiality can be compromised within the group setting and that participants should
only share information that they were comfortable with the other group members knowing.
Additionally, focus group participants were only asked to discuss their work and were not
asked to reveal any private or personal information.
4.5 Conclusion
The qualitative multimethod approach used in my research enabled a deeper understanding of
the experiences and perceptions of tenants living in social and affordable mixed-tenure
community housing, that, to date, has mostly been limited to policy objectives. The use of the
four methods—document analysis, focus groups, observation, and photo elicited and semi-
structured interviews—provided rich descriptions of the social life at the two housing sites.
These data sources were thematically analysed and triangulated to deepen understandings of
what tenant participants valued and why, the role of housing governance in shaping this, and
how these are situated within broader social, economic, and political contexts. While my
research experienced limitations, particularly pertaining to COVID-19 lockdown restrictions,
and there were ethical considerations based on the vulnerability inherent to social housing
tenants, this chapter has detailed how I addressed such factors.
Throughout the chapter, I have emphasised how the use of a qualitative multimethod design,
underpinned by social constructivism and the synthesis of inductive and deductive analysis
with data triangulation, allowed for the significance of community housing from the
perspective of the tenant participants to emerge and be prioritised. Having outlined the
research design, I now turn to the research findings. The next chapter is the first of four
empirical chapters where I analyse the data collected from the multiple methods to
understand how community housing tenants construct their notion of home.
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5. Imagining home: ‘Freedom from’ past experiences
5.1 Introduction
Home is spatially and temporally created: dwellers assign meaning to a dwelling from how
they interact with and within the space over time (Dupuis & Thorns, 1998; Plage et al., 2023).
Additionally, the value of a home is informed by the dweller’s social, economic, cultural, and
political context (Dupuis & Thorns, 1998; Easthope, 2004). Taken together, a dweller’s
context across time shapes how they interact with, and assign meaning to, their homes. I build
on this premise by examining the factors that contributed to how social and affordable tenant
participants at North-West and North-East Burbs conceptualised home, and the value they
derived from this. Homes have social and material dimensions. The physical form of a
dwelling is transformed into a home by the social and material interaction between the
dweller and the dwelling (Clapham, 2005). The first two sections of this chapter are
structured by these distinct but interconnected dimensions of home. By examining the
material and social as distinct dimensions, I draw attention to the predominant conditions that
facilitated home experiences, while also noting that these conditions do not occur in isolation
—they were shaped by intersecting factors influenced by tenant participants’ past and current
social and economic contexts. I use Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) conceptualisation of
conditions of home to explain how tenure conditions attached to the dwelling provided a
predictable and constant social and material environment that tenant participants felt they had
control over. Further, I build on Dupuis and Thorns’ ontological security framework by
highlighting the beneficial ontological experiences derived from these conditions that are
relative to community housing tenants’ historical and social contexts, such as a sense of
safety, mental ease, and basic comforts at home. Of note was that historical and social
contexts were similar for both social and affordable tenant participants, and so they imagined
home in similar ways. Imagining home was also mostly consistent across the two housing
sites. The final section of this chapter examines how Unison supports tenants12 to imagine
home through tenancy support practices. Here, place-managers were, as Plage et al. (2023)
state, co-producers of ontological security. Social landlords are tasked with the responsibility
of delivering and maintaining both tenancies and housing sites, and often act as a bridge
12 I use the term ‘tenant’ when referring more generally to non-participating tenants who reside at Unison
properties and ‘tenant participant’ when referring to tenants who participated in an interview for this research.
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between tenants and support services and the broader neighbourhood (Hickman et al., 2023;
Tually et al., 2020). Therefore, they play an important role in facilitating the social and
material conditions that contribute to a sense of ontological security. In the context of
imagining home, place-managers supported tenants to establish a sense of housing security.
The inclusion of Unison staff perspectives provides insight into how the housing sites are
governed, and how home can be facilitated, or otherwise, by the practices of staff to ensure
tenants are able to develop a sense of ontological security. As such, governance perspectives
contribute to a deeper understanding of how tenants residing at Unison housing sites were
supported to imagine home.
I use this chapter to make the argument that the ontological experiences within the context of
imagining home were not uniform but were contingent upon social structures and social
conditions. I draw on Kearns et al.’s (2000) idea of ‘freedoms’ to illustrate how historical and
current contexts shaped residents’ experiences of home. Kearns et al. (2000) applied
‘freedoms’ to the psychosocial benefits of home. They note autonomy over home means
having the ‘freedom to’ use home as one wants, and the ‘freedom from’ judgement from
others when at home. I extend this idea to understand how social structures and current social
contexts relate to subjective experiences of freedoms. In examining the material and social
dimensions, tenant participant accounts point to how freedoms intersect across a time-space
continuum in the construction of a sense of home. Examining such freedoms is not new to
housing and home scholarship. However, homemaking practices, while multifaceted, have
generally been defined as a singular phenomenon. I argue that within this, there appear to be
two phenomena. The first, examined in this chapter, is how dimensions of home are more
passively experienced and valued but equally provide the basis from which a sense of
ontological security can emerge. These experiences are distinct from the second
phenomenon, wherein active homemaking practices function to maintain and reinforce that
sense of ontological security (Clapham, 2005) (examined in the next chapter). Imagining
home captures the unique and defined experience of being ‘free from’ past insecurities or
unsafe environments. Tenant participants identified basic comforts or enjoyment that are
often unconscious, taken-for-granted experiences of those who do not share the same
histories or disadvantages.
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5.2 Material dimensions of imaging home
5.2.1 ‘Freedom from’ housing insecurity
Housing as physical shelter interrelates with the social and emotional benefits of home
(Padgett, 2007). The material predictability and constancy of shelter fosters a sense of
comfort and safety by alleviating the fear of homelessness and its associated wellbeing
impacts (Dupuis, 2012). Tenure is connected to this. Homeownership has long been
associated with ontological security because, among other things, it is believed to provide a
greater sense of control and constancy than other tenure types (Saunders, 1989). More
recently, social housing tenure has also been understood to provide this security due to the
stability and sense of belonging connected to ongoing leases (Fitzpatrick & Watts, 2017). For
private renters, a sense of security is context specific and not necessarily inherent to the
tenure type. Within an Australia context, private rental properties have short-term leases and
other eviction mechanisms available to landlords, and so have been connected to ontological
insecurity (Easthope, 2014). As observed in this research, the provision of ongoing and
affordable tenancies allowed both social and affordable tenant participants to live ‘free from’
the fears associated with housing insecurity, such as eviction and unaffordable rent. This was
contextualised within tenant participants’ previous experiences of housing insecurity and
their awareness of possible homelessness, given their economic status paired with housing
unaffordability in the private rental market.
Experiences of poverty underpinned this. Poverty is more than just low income; it also
includes a series of exclusions such as employment, health, and education (Ansaloni &
Heylen, 2023; Dewilde & De Keulenaer, 2003; Saunders, 2010). Tenant participants
experienced these exclusions, exacerbated by intersecting structural factors such as housing
and labour markets, and welfare regimes (Dewilde & De Keulenaer, 2003; Saunders, 2010).
For example, Coraline, an affordable tenant participant, had experienced long-term
unemployment. This can have a worsening affect, where persistent unemployment leads to a
loss of skills, self-confidence, and social networks, further entrenching unemployment
(McLachlan et al., 2013). In Coraline’s case, being long-term unemployed also made her
financially dependent on her partner, as his income was slightly above the threshold for her to
be eligible for any social support payments. Coraline and her partner had moved into North-
East Burb after being priced out of the private rental market. She said their previous rental
property was ‘re-furbished and the rent increased by $140 a week. We can’t afford that’.
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Coraline said that at North-East Burb ‘rent will increase 2.5% each year but at least we know
about it. We won’t get evicted and have nowhere to go’. In response to this, Coraline said, ‘I
mean, I am grateful that there is Unison. Otherwise. I don’t know how we’d be able to find
anything.’ Constancy and predictability in the material environment is a necessary foundation
for home (Dupuis & Thorns, 1998), and Coraline’s story points to the role that affordability
plays in establishing this. Coraline expressed gratitude community housing organisations
(CHO) exist that can offer rent at a subsided rate. Otherwise, she was unsure of how she and
her partner would be able to access alternative housing at market-rate rent. Financial
predictability was also important—while Coraline noted there would be rent increases,
knowing when and by how much contributed to tenure security. Here, the material provision
of affordable tenancy provided ‘freedom from’ the risks associated with the unaffordability of
renting privately, and in turn, started to establish a sense of ontological security.
Harry, a social tenant participant, had moved to North-East Burb 12 years ago. Harry was
evicted from his private rental property after 11 years due to it being renovated and he was
unable to afford alternative housing. Harry’s circumstances illustrate the economic impact of
chronic illness, as he had both physical and mental health conditions that prevented him from
working. Manderson and Warren (2016) detail the interaction this has with poverty—loss of
employment, ongoing medical costs, and low rates of income support coalesce to create the
conditions of exclusion. For Harry, this manifested in housing precarity. Harry said he took
the owners to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT), which ordered that he
‘be allocated the next available unit’ and he moved into his community housing property
shortly thereafter. Harry, knowing the inaccessibility of the private market to those on the age
pension, said, ‘I’m just grateful I’ve got a roof over my head.’ Likening tenure to shelter, or
‘a roof over my head’, is reflective of a baseline level of material security. The provision of
material constancy was not necessarily connected to realising a complete sense of home,
where all conditions are met, but provided the basis from which ontological security could
develop.
In her discussion, Monika contrasted living with and without housing insecurity. Monika and
her young child became homeless due to family violence. Monika’s history was reflective of
a common response to family violence, where women and children leave the home rather
than the perpetrator leaving, placing them at risk of homelessness and housing instability
(Valentine & Breckenridge, 2016). Family violence, housing instability and homelessness,
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and experiences of poor mental health are intricately linked (Gilroy et al., 2016; O’Campo et
al., 2016). Stress associated with increased mobility, securing and maintaining housing, and
ensuring housing is safe, that is, trying to re-establish a sense of ontological security, is most
acutely felt in the initial period after leaving (O’Campo et al., 2016). It was this experience of
instability that Monika compared with her current experience of secure housing at North-
West Burb, where she was now living free from the mental strain associated with feeling
ontologically insecure. She said:
When you’ve got issues of mental health, like I do, and being a single parent,
there’s all these different sorts of things. If you take away the big chunk of “Oh
my God, am I going to have to move next week? Do I have to go and hunt for a
house, where are we going to live?” That’s a big chunk and it impacts on (as)
an improvement in mental health. There’s so many different flow-on effects that
having stable accommodation can actually have on all aspects of life. So, I’m
very, very grateful for that.
Monika identified the benefits of having secure housing. She linked being free from the
stressors of housing insecurity to better mental health and the capacity to care for her child as
a single parent. Fitzpatrick and Pawson (2014) explain the connection between mental health,
parenting and housing security for low-income households; the need to provide stability for
children, their schooling, and their social life is a cause of anxiety for parents that is
compounded with fear of tenancy insecurity. This is heightened when, as in Monika’s case,
there has been a period of instability following family violence (O’Campo et al., 2016).
Monika’s circumstances provide some insight into the way a secure tenancy can mitigate this
sort of angst. Her story provides a further illustration of how wellbeing is intimately
connected to, but not dependent on, experiencing the material aspects of home as a secure
and constant place. Indeed, Monika’s story draws attention to how the fear of eviction and
homelessness, and the unpredictability associated with finding a new property undermines
ontological security (Easthope, 2014).
5.2.2 ‘Freedom from’ unaffordability
The material provision of affordable housing provided tenant participants with the ‘freedom
from’ financial insecurity and unaffordable living expenses. This affordability connects two
of Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) markers of home: home as a place of constancy and
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predictability, and home as a place of feeling in control and of comfort. Specifically, financial
constancy and predictability meant tenant participants had increased control over how they
cared for themselves by affording basic comforts. Power and Mee (2020) refer to this as ‘care
resources’ (p. 495), whereby affordable and predictable rent enables tenants the capacity to
purchase items such as nutritious food and to use utilities such as heating and cooling. Morris
(2009) highlights the impact of unpredictable living costs for low-income households,
particularly those in private rental. The impact is not merely going without care necessities,
although that alone is significant; it also causes mental distress and social isolation. Such
experiences reflect a sense of ontological insecurity, where unaffordability is associated with
stress about finances and restricts basic social and material necessities. For example, low-
income households have constant worry about receiving unaffordable utility bills or are
unable to participate in social outings, even if they are low cost (Morris, 2009). These were
the historical conditions of some tenant participants. Previous financial hardship in the
private market shaped the experience of now having home comforts in their community
housing dwelling. These experiences were not actively being made, but rather, tenant
participants expressed appreciation for tenure provisions that provided relief from past
experiences of financial insecurity and enabled a baseline level of comfort at home.
Rent was subsidised for social and affordable tenants at both North-East and North-West
Burbs. However, at North-West Burb, utilities were also included in the rent. It was this
inclusion that acted as the tenancy mechanism for financial constancy and predictability. The
inclusion of utilities meant these tenant participants had greater control over their dwellings
by using the heating and cooling at their choosing. Dorothy, a social tenant participant who
received the disability support pension, explained the unaffordability of her previous housing:
My other bungalow was self-contained, but I paid for the bills. So, I couldn’t
afford the heating. I couldn’t afford, you know, my expenses were high. The fact
that I don’t pay the bills. I got the heater on now, yay! It’s wonderful. My butt’s
never been so warm.
Dorothy’s reflection and her joyful emotion associated with this suggests that experiencing
such a basic comfort as heating was an anomaly. Dorothy’s social and historical context
illustrates the cumulative economic impact of family violence and chronic health conditions.
Dorothy experienced family violence in her family home growing up and in adulthood from
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intimate partners. She was also diagnosed with a chronic health condition in adulthood.
Moreover, economic disadvantage can arise from disruptions to employment paired with
inadequate income support compared to the cost of living, and mobility and housing
instability associated with both family violence and disability (Flanagan et al., 2019;
McLachlan et al., 2013; Valentine & Breckenridge, 2016). This leads to people making
compromises in everyday life for essentials (Manderson & Warren, 2016) such as, in
Dorothy’s case, the use of heating at home. This foregrounds the value Dorothy placed on the
financial predictability and the enjoyment of home necessities.
Similarly, Adrian, an affordable tenant participant, was able to have the air conditioning on in
his west-facing, top floor apartment. He said:
What they (Unison) offer is the financial incentives. That’s why a lot of people
are still here. For example, if I had to pay for the air conditioner that I’m
running right now in my unit. My dog is sitting cool and comfortable inside that
unit. If I had to pay for the electric bill that comes out of that every summer, I
wouldn’t be here. I would need to get a second job. But because we’re afforded
the utilities as part of our rent, you can afford to have AC going.
Even though Adrian was employed, he still perceived that he would be unable to afford both
rent and utilities on his income in the private rental market. Adrian rationalised that the
financial benefit outweighed the problems at North-West Burb, and this was a reason to
continue living there. Low-income households experiencing housing affordability stress
(those paying more than 30% of their income on rent) in the private rental market face similar
challenges, where the housing costs to income ratio places them in financial risk, so
unexpected costs and bills create added financial stress (Hulse et al., 2019b; Stone et al.,
2013, 2015). The purpose of affordable housing is to alleviate that stress by ensuring that
low-income households do not pay more than 30% of their income on rent. Adrian’s
experience suggested that even with subsidised housing while employed, utility bills still
presented a challenge. The inclusion of utilities provided financial predictability, offering
Adrian a sense of security by reducing stress associated with housing costs. Further, this
increased Adrian’s control over his dwelling and how he could care for himself. The capacity
to care for self with this material provision was rationalised as an incentive to stay in his
tenancy, providing a sense of ongoing housing security.
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Emir made a comparable observation. He rationalised that his continuing to live at North-
West Burb was due to affordability only. Like Dorothy, Emir also received the disability
support pension. Emir identified how the inclusion of utilities in rent enabled him to purchase
food for himself and his cat, comparing this to his previous private rental property where this
was not available to him. He said:
When I moved here, I didn’t know their rent included bills. I didn’t know, once
I know the bill’s included in the rent, I was very happy. When I was in a private
rental, my fridge was never full … Here my fridge is okay. I can buy lots of
expensive food for my cat. Do I have a social life? No. But economically, I’m
much, much better than when I was in private rental. I can say this.
While Emir noted that there were still limitations in being able to have a good quality of life,
he was economically better off at North-West Burb compared to when he was living in
private rental. This accords with Mee’s (2009) research, which found that affordable rent in
public housing enabled the purchase of care resources and better management of small
incomes. In community housing, Dorothy, Adrian, and Emir’s circumstances suggest it was
the inclusion of utilities in the rent that increased this capacity. The inclusion of utilities in
rent was not provided at North-East Burb, and tenant participants did not report this kind of
material comfort derived from their tenure conditions. This difference in experience reveals
that having utilities included is an important tenancy mechanism that supports constructing
tenant notions of home, and illustrates how to apply Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) markers of
home to community housing. Financial predictability was afforded through the inclusion of
utilities which, in turn, provided increased comfort and control at home. While having just
basic needs met appears rudimentary, secure and affordable tenure still engendered sufficient
trust in the predictability of the material environment for tenant participants at North-West
Burb to start developing a sense of ontological security.
5.3 Social dimensions of imagining home
5.3.1 ‘Freedom from’ social risk
Dupuis (2012) contends that the privacy of home provides protection from external threats.
Privacy and autonomy over home, that is, being able to do what you want, when you want to
at home, fosters comfort (Dupuis, 2012). However, housing scholarship has also drawn
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attention to how home does not always provide this protection, noting that for some, home
can be a place of family violence, social threat, and oppression (Royal Commission into
Family Violence, 2016; Sutherland et al., 2022). The latter is the context for Dorothy, Robert,
and Oscar. Their experiences provide insight into why self-contained, individual dwellings
are a valued mechanism for achieving Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) home conditions of privacy
and control. Living alone and having control over the social aspects of home provided these
tenant participants with the ‘freedom from’ past experiences of social risks, such as threats to
personhood and possessions from others, and lack of autonomy over the social aspects of
home. Here, the material and social components of home intersected—having autonomy over
the material boundary of the dwelling enabled social control within it. From this, a sense of
ontological security emerged. Controlling access to the space provided freedom from social
risks, thus enabling these tenant participants to establish a sense of home through safety,
privacy, and autonomy.
For Dorothy, living alone gave her the capacity to live free from violence within the privacy
of her own dwelling, enabling her to feel safe. The previous section noted how Dorothy had a
history of family violence in childhood and from intimate partners in adulthood. She saw
living by herself as a benefit of her current housing and throughout her interview spoke about
her apartment being safe. Dorothy said the advantage of living at North-West Burb was
‘Living alone. Having my own space.’ She explained:
Look I’ve had abuse in the household, so for me to feel unsafe the degree has to
be pretty damn high. That, and the black belt in two martial arts help. That and
I’m 50, who cares. So, the point is, once that glass door is closed, and that front
door is locked, I’m pretty safe in here. I feel safe in my own little place.
Past experiences of violence meant that home was previously characterised by a lack of
autonomy and control over her personhood. This contextualised the value of living alone, and
the sense of safety Dorothy experienced once inside. This living arrangement was made
possible through her community housing tenancy, likely financially out of reach to Dorothy
in the private rental market, given her only income source was the disability support pension.
While the autonomy from living alone created some sense of safety, Dorothy’s life history
and her perception of self contributed to this. Dorothy drew on these factors to establish
Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) ‘sense of control’ as a marker of home. While Dorothy had
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control over the boundaries of her home, enabling her to manage social risk, she also
compared her past and present situations to rationalise a sense of safety and control. Here,
Giddens’ (1991, p. 134) ‘adaptive reactions’ can be applied to understand how this rationale
functioned as a mechanism to enable Dorothy’s sense of control. Adaptive reactions are
responses people engage in when faced with risk or insecurity. Dorothy illustrated how she
engaged with ‘cynical pessimism’ (p. 136), used to lessen the impact of threats ‘through
either a humorous or a world-weary response to them’ (p. 136) to feel safe at home. As a
family violence survivor, Dorothy expressed a desensitisation to, and tolerance for, feeling
unsafe. Her proficiency in martial arts created a perception of self-protection capability, and
she devalued her need for safety due to her age, illustrated by saying, ‘I’m 50, who cares.’
While living alone contributed to a sense of safety, it was not enough for Dorothy to garner a
complete sense of security. For Dorothy, freedom from violence within the home was
combined with risk-minimising rationales to provide a sense of safety.
Robert and Oscar had both previously lived in rooming houses and, like Dorothy, both valued
having their own space. Privacy and autonomy over the social space was key. Dupuis and
Thorns (1998) contend homes are valued because of the privacy they afford; privacy from
external surveillance enables home spaces to be used as one wishes. Experiences of
homelessness, such as sleeping rough or staying in boarding accommodation, are inextricably
linked to a lack of privacy and autonomy over space (Mifflin & Wilton, 2005; Padgett, 2007).
Dependency on communal spaces limits spending time as one chooses without infringing on
others or being infringed on (Mifflin & Wilton, 2005; Padgett, 2007). As such, living alone is
valued for providing that freedom from others (Padgett, 2007). Robert and Oscar’s past
experiences of living in rooming houses were the reference point for why they now valued
the social dimension of their dwellings, and how privacy and control over the social space
enabled them to experience home.
Robert, at North-East Burb, valued his own space for the seclusion it offered from social
interactions with other people. He grew up in an orphanage, first became homeless as an
adolescent, and had experienced intermittent homelessness throughout his life, including
rough sleeping, couch surfing, and living in rooming houses. These transient experiences,
commonly devoid of any privacy or meaningful control, contextualised Robert now
experiencing what Giddens (1991, p. 92) calls a sense of ‘being-in-the-world’, that is, feeling
ontologically secure. This was expressed by Robert’s capacity to feel content with his own
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company and being able to ‘veg out’ with just his cat. He said, ‘I like my own company.
Which has changed over the years. I always needed to be around people, but now, I just, I’ve
got my cat.’
In explaining this change, Robert spoke about living in the boarding house where he was
constantly surrounded by others. Robert said:
The difference between this Unison property and the boarding house property
was that everyone was in your face in the boarding house. You know. When the
soup van came everyone would see each other. Um, when you did your washing,
because they had a washing machine over there, everyone would see you.
Robert highlighted the importance of privacy for establishing a sense of home. Having
privacy when performing daily tasks such as eating meals and doing laundry without being
observed or having to interact with others was significant. Robert’s account suggests that this
privacy was facilitated by living by himself in a self-contained apartment. No longer having
to share necessary amenities with other tenants meant Robert was free from unwanted
surveillance and social interaction, and he was content with spending time alone with his cat.
For Oscar, at North-West Burb, the benefit of having privacy and autonomy over the space
was twofold: it had given him his own space that was ‘quiet and I can be by myself’, and it
had also enabled him to feel free to leave his apartment. Oscar said that at the rooming house
he would stay home ‘all day, every day’ for fear that if he left, his food and possessions
would be stolen. Threats to possessions in rooming housings from both other tenants and
external people are common and these threats can severely disrupt people’s sense of safety
(Mifflin and Wilton 2005). Further, McCarthy (2020) found that losing possessions from
theft and lack of security in places such as rooming housing undermines a sense of home and
is associated with a feeling of loss and homelessness. Indeed, Oscar’s experience highlights
how having a self-contained, individual apartment contrasted with a rooming house by
facilitating the conditions of home as a place of privacy and control. Having his own
apartment provided Oscar with the ‘freedom from’ internal and external threats to his
possessions, fostering a sense of safety at home, and allowing him the freedom to leave.
Oscar said, ‘Here, I can leave’ and spend most of his days ‘out and about because I don’t
need to worry my stuff will be stolen’. For Dorothy and Robert, autonomy over their space
was associated with positive experiences while at home. However, for Oscar, having
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autonomy over his private dwelling removed the threat to his property and possessions, and
in doing so, enabled the necessary security to spend time away from home.
So far, this chapter has examined how governing policies such as ongoing tenancies and rent
provisions interact with tenant participants’ histories to shape how tenant participants begin
to establish ontological security in their process of imagining home. I now turn to the
governing practices used to contribute to the imagining of home. These practices were used
to maintain a baseline level of comfort and security, that is, to maintain a sense of ontological
security.
5.4 Governing dimensions of imagining home
5.4.1 Sustaining tenancies to remain ‘free from’ housing insecurity
Sustaining ‘freedom from’ housing insecurity can be understood as tenancy sustainment.
There is no single definition of tenancy sustainment within housing and homelessness
scholarship (Boland et al., 2018; Pawson & Munro 2010). Generally, within social housing
tenancy sustainment is understood as preventing unfavourable exits such as those due to
abandonment or eviction, or premature exists, that is, being within the first 12–18 months of
tenancy (Boland et al., 2018; Pawson & Munro 2010; Taylor & Johnson, 2021). Sustaining
tenancies was a repeated phrase and key objective of place-managers that can best be
summed up by Place-manager 5, who said, ‘We basically beg and plead with them [tenants]
to sustain their tenancies.’ Indeed, tenancy sustainment matters for both social housing
providers and tenants—social landlords incur costs during the re-letting process from repairs,
cleaning, and loss of rental income, while the tenant incurs the health and social costs related
to housing insecurity and social exclusion (Pawson & Munro, 2010; Johnson et al., 2024).
Some population groups within social housing are more vulnerable than others to tenancy
breakdown—those who have a background in institutional accommodation, those who have
been rough sleepers and experienced relapsing homelessness, and those experiencing
homelessness immediately prior to their tenancy are more likely to have unfavourable or
premature tenancy exits (Pawson & Munro, 2010; Taylor & Johnson, 2021). These housing
and social histories contextualise experiences of ontological security and informed Unison’s
practices. As Executive 1 explained:
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… their backgrounds, so many of our tenants have chronic histories of
homelessness and disadvantage and poverty so they’ve been marginalised from
the mainstream community for a very long time. I think that essentially what
we’re trying to do at Unison is house a very complex group of people and keep
them housed.
Executive 1’s characterisation of the tenant group is supported by Taylor et al.’s (2020)
findings from their longitudinal study into new social housing tenants at Unison (n =170).
They found new social housing tenants had histories that included chronic housing instability,
with 84% previously experiencing homelessness, and two-thirds being homeless immediately
prior to their Unison tenancy. New tenants also experienced other forms of disadvantage—9
in 10 were reliant on Centrelink payments as their main source of income and had
experienced long-term unemployment, and 85% reported financial stress in the last six
months. Further, 8 in 10 new tenants had chronic health conditions, half with multiple
conditions, and two-thirds of tenants had mental health conditions (Taylor et al., 2020). This,
combined with challenges that those who had experienced recent homelessness had in
maintaining their tenancy, emphasises the importance of Unison in engaging in support
practices to sustain the foundational components of home.
Just as constructed notions of home were similar between the two tenure groups, place-
managers highlighted that some affordable housing tenants had similar experiences of
hardship and marginality as social housing tenants, and thus there was the need to support
tenancy sustainment for both groups. Place-manager accounts of the two groups ranged from
perceiving tenure types as indistinguishable to noting that at times, affordable housing tenants
presented with support needs commonly associated with social housing tenants:
Place-manager 1: Unless you know the tenancy and that it is social or
affordable, you don’t know.
Place-manager 7: Some affordable [tenants] might need more [support] than a
social tenant that you might have, so it crosses over.
Place-manager 5 reported how this informed tenancy sustainment practices:
I try to apply the same sort of discretion to everybody’s tenancy, because shit
happens in everybody’s lives. Even if you’re working full time, people can still
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go through rough patches and need to catch a break. So, I just give everybody
the same sort of process.
Place-manager 5 emphasised how both tenure groups experienced challenges and required
support. Such hardships have been illustrated in the previous sections, whereby affordable
tenant participants reported similar backgrounds of housing insecurity and economic
marginalisation as social tenant participants. There is a dearth of literature that examines
affordable housing tenant housing experiences and support needs.13 Yet, place-manager
accounts indicated their awareness of the challenges that affordable housing tenants also
experienced, and so they applied the same tenancy sustainment practices to both tenure
groups. I turn now to examine the two key approaches place-managers used to support
tenants to remain free from housing insecurity.
5.4.2 Preventative approaches to tenancy sustainment
Pawson and Munro (2010) argue that social landlord practices can influence tenancy
sustainment by supporting tenants to meet their tenancy obligations. They emphasise the
importance of landlord practices in response to the challenges tenants with histories of
housing precarity can experience in ‘establishing a tenancy, and a home, that fulfilled even
the most basic needs for comfort and security’ (p. 160). Unison’s place-managers practised
from this position. Place-managers instigated regular communication and interaction with
tenants to support them to meet their tenancy obligations. This functioned to support the
maintenance of Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) condition of home being a constant material
environment by ensuring tenants’ access to physical shelter would remain secure. This had
two interwoven intentions—first, to provide information relevant to establishing a home, and
second, to develop a trusting relationship with tenants, that, in turn, could aid social support.
Information included how to set up essential aspects of their tenancies, such as how to pay
rent via Centrelink, how to organise parking permits, their tenancy responsibilities, and the
rent and breach process with VCAT. Place-manager 11 detailed this as the following:
We provide a lot of advice and support. We tell people about Centrelink, how
to organise your parking permits, everything and anything that they need help
13 Exceptions include Carey & Johnson’s (2022) research on affordable housing tenants’ housing satisfaction
and Dodds et al.’s (n.d.) report on the housing pathways and aspirations of NRAS tenants.
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for. Or, you shouldn’t do this because this could lead to a breach, or explain
the whole rent process, like say explain how if you don’t pay you’ll go to VCAT.
Information provision illustrates how place-managers co-produce ontological security in
tangible ways to secure a sense of constancy of home. Relevant here is the futural dimension
of ontological security—ontological security requires trust in the spatial constancy in both the
present and the future (Giddens, 1984, 1991), that is, belief that the future is knowable (Plage
et al., 2023). Place-managers intended to inform and equip tenants with skills to not only set
up a home but also to maintain it by meeting what are, for some, challenging tenancy
obligations.
Indeed, tenancies are lost, in part, due to lack of information on how to set up and maintain a
home (Pawson & Munro, 2010). This can be related to how homes function, such as how to
use the heating (Pawson & Munro, 2010) or, as Place-manager 11 identified above,
understanding ‘the whole rent process’. Place-manager 11 listed an array of information and
supports to assist with this. First was informing tenants about Centrelink services. Centrelink
provides two free and voluntary services for welfare recipients to make direct payments from
their Centrelink income—the Rent Deduction Service for rent, and Centrepay, used for
paying rent as well as other household expenses such as utilities (Services Australia, 2021;
2024). The policy rationale for both services is to prevent evictions due to rent arrears by
automatically deducting rental payments to prevent money being spent on other things, a
major pathway to homelessness (Parliament of Australia, 2017). These services appear to
help support this intention. For example, Parsell et al.’s (2023) evaluation of Queensland’s
permanent supportive housing program found that when rent arrears occur (accounting for
18% of tenancy breaches) this often follows tenants discontinuing with Centrepay. This
illustrates the relevance of Unison ensuring their tenants were aware of these rent paying
mechanisms, and how doing so contributed to the constancy of tenants’ material
environment. Further, Unison informed tenants of the breach process if rent is not paid
(examined in the next section), as well as identifying individual support needs. This practical
information aimed to contribute to tenants’ capacity to establish home and maintain it into the
future.
Developing a trusting relationship through rapport building was also used to support tenancy
sustainment. This served to collectively produce a sense of security—building a relationship
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between the tenant and place-manager helped Unison to provide or facilitate early support to
tenants should they need it, thus preventing tenancy breakdown and a rupture to the
constancy of the home environment. For example, Place-manager 7 emphasised the
importance of ‘knowing your clients’ to distinguish what behaviour was ‘normal for this
person’. Having this existing relationship made it easier to identify and address tenancy
issues. Place-manager 10 said, ‘If you have that relationship with the tenants you can pick up
things a lot earlier that might kind of manifest itself later on.’
Identifying tenancy issues earlier could prevent problems from growing and thus impacting
on tenancy sustainment. Familiarity with the tenant was central to this—knowing the tenant’s
usual presentation and behaviours aided identifying when tenants deviated from their own
norm. This reflects a relationship of trust which underscores ontological security (Giddens,
1984, 1991). Here, place-managers were active producers of ontological security—creating a
basis of trust with tenants functioned to ensure their baseline level of home remained secure.
While other scholarship notes the importance of this relationship in fostering trust between
the tenants and social landlord so that the tenants then feel secure enough to raise issues with
their landlord (Bimpson et al., 2022; Hickman et al.,2023), here the onus was on the place-
manager to identify issues and implement actions to sustain the tenancy. This preventative
and relational approach is known to work. Housing research has found tenancies are
sustained through frequent practices that build rapport and help to identify support needs and
challenges in tenants’ lives (Bimpson et al., 2022; Boland et al., 2018). Place-managers
identified a range of interaction types to foster this. For example, Place-manager 7 used
activities to create ‘a better connection between the tenant and the place-manager’. Place-
manager 7 explained:
Through a good engagement if then when we have to have a more difficult
conversation later, we already have that relationship with the tenant, and it’s
not as difficult to have the conversation.
The existing connection enabled place-managers to have ‘more difficult’ conversations on
tenancy issues. The intentional relational component of their role was integrated with tenancy
management tasks. For instance, routine property inspections were used to build rapport,
identify issues, and provide information on available support. Place-manager 8 explained that
during routine inspections:
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you do take that time to have a conversation about what’s going on and if there’s
tenant damage then you’re finding out if something is going on for them. And
trying to build that relationship with them and talk about how Unison can assist
them.
These place-manager practices further understandings of how governance in community
housing facilitates Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) marker of home as being a constant social and
material environment from which ontological security can emerge. Drawing a connection
between co-producing ontological security and tenancy sustainment, place-managers create
secure and constant conditions through the tasks performed as part of their role. Unison’s
place-managers integrated tenancy sustainment mechanisms, such as information, advice, and
support (Boland et al., 2018), into their tenancy management. They did this via actions such
as house inspections, housing meetings, and other on-site activities to build trusting
relationships. Hickman et al. (2023, p. 7) refer to these practices as ‘quality interactions’.
They argue interaction itself is not enough to sustain tenancies. Rather, interactions require
intentionality to properly sustain tenancies. Place-manager accounts aligned with this—they
engaged in interactions to foster trust between the landlord and the tenant to support future
engagement and to identify tenant needs (Hickman et al., 2023). Such preventative and
intentional practices were intended to support tenants to meet their baseline tenancy
responsibilities, thereby remaining free from their past experiences of housing insecurity. In
carrying out these practices, place-managers were, in part, laying the foundations of
ontological security. Data from Taylor et al. (2023) suggest this approach has had some
success. Their longitudinal study on Unison’s tenancy sustainment found that 94% of the 170
new social housing tenants had sustained their tenancy after 12 months, considered a high
rate of retention for this population group. However, these practices were not all successful in
preventing tenancy breaches. The next section examines how place-managers responded to
tenancy breaches.
5.4.3 Responding to breaches to sustain tenancies
Once a breach had been issued, place-managers engaged in practices to support tenants to
sustain the tenancy. Receiving a breach means that tenancy conditions have not been met and
presents the possibility of losing the tenancy if not rectified. As such, receiving a breach can
destabilise a tenant’s sense of ontological security (Cameron, 2024). Therefore, just as
ontological security can be collectively produced, so too can ontological insecurity (Plage et
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al., 2023). In these cases, Unison policy, place-manager practices, and tenant actions, shaped
by tenant histories and current context, were interwoven to bring about tenure uncertainty.
This is not to say that Unison policy or staff practices were unreasonable or unfair. In fact,
Unison’s policies state that they act in line with the RTA and Charter of Human Rights and
Responsibilities Act 2006 (Vic) (the Charter—see Appendix I). Rather, regardless of the
reasonableness or not of tenancy obligations, in some instances tenants are unable to meet
them. In such cases, preventative measures examined in the previous section were
unsuccessful in securing constancy in the tenant’s material environment. Therefore, the
document analysis of Unison’s anti-social behaviour and breaching procedure (Feb, 2019,
Appendix J) showed that if a tenant was not meeting their responsibility under the RTA and
their lease agreement, and were not collaborating with their place-manager on a solution, the
place-manager may issue a breach. For less serious breaches, like causing a nuisance, Unison
may apply for a compliance order at VCAT.14 In doing so, Unison introduced another actor
into the co-production of ontological security by utilising VCAT as a mechanism in their
attempt to re-establish tenure certainty. The purpose of a compliance order is to address the
offending behaviour or receive monetary compensation for property damage, while still
sustaining the tenancy. For serious breaches, like danger or use of premises for illegal
purposes, Unison may apply for a possession order to then give the tenant a notice to vacate
to subsequent eviction. Place-managers spoke to the first, less serious, breaches in the focus
groups. These policies set the parameters within which place-managers practised, but place-
managers differed in how they viewed these polices, enacted them, and understood the role of
VCAT. Some took a more punitive approach, while others were more collaborative in their
attempts to maintain home. Both approaches were reported as effective in sustaining
tenancies.
Punitive approaches are not new to social housing governance. These are tools of disciplinary
power used to support tenants to take individual responsibility for their behaviour with the
expectation they should and can self-regulate their conduct to align with dominant social
norms and behavioural expectations (Arthurson & Jacobs, 2009; Dufty-Jones, 2016; Flint,
2002, 2004). At Unison, some place-managers spoke to the effectiveness of the VCAT
process in providing that discipline and thus changing tenant behaviour. This included both
14 The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) is the Victorian mechanism to provide fair and just
dispute resolution. This includes, among other things, residential tenancy disputes between social landlords and
tenants (VCAT, n.d.).
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the threat of ‘court’ or attending VCAT and receiving a ‘telling off’ from the magistrate. For
example, below is an excerpt from dialogue between place-managers 10 and 11 on how they
found breaches to be successful:
Place-manager 11: I’ve had good outcomes as well, by giving breaches to
tenants. Because they’ll have all their friends over and I’ll go, “Look, this is
one way you can lose your tenancy”. If there’s really bad antisocial behaviour,
noise, etc., I’ll give them the breach. They’ll stick that on the fridge, they’ll go,
“If I get another one of these I’ll go to court and I’ll lose my property”, and
sometimes it works.
Place-manager 10: Breaches are successful, amazingly successful, I find. For
what it is. It’s literally a piece of paper, you know.
Place-manager 11: The consequences after going to court can have a pretty bad
impact on our tenant. They have to go to court for the day, stuff like that. It’s
not like a nice experience. And sometime the magistrate will give them a telling-
off as well. A lot of the time it works.
Within this approach, the co-production of ontological security involved exacerbating a sense
of ontological insecurity. The real or imagined experience of VCAT was a negative
consequence for failing to meet tenancy obligations, associated with discomfort and a space
of continued tenure uncertainty. Breaches were framed as being a step closer to ‘losing their
property’, with the reminder of insecurity posted on the fridge, while the negative experience
of going to court and being berated by the magistrate intended to emphasise the seriousness
of the tenant’s housing precarity. Within this approach, place-managers leveraged a sense of
insecurity as motivation for behaviour change in the hope that the tenant would then gain
longer-term housing security. Some housing scholars have been critical of the assumptions
that underpin punitive measures, such as individual responsibility, and for not taking into
consideration broader social and economic factors that may be shaping tenant behaviour
(Arthurson & Jacobs, 2009; Flint, 2002, 2004). Such disciplinary approaches expect tenants
to regulate their own conduct despite previously being unable to do so (Flint, 2002). As such,
punitive approaches can be ineffective in addressing anti-social behaviour (Flint, 2002), and
can instead lead to alienating tenants, social exclusion, and tenancy breakdown (Clarke et al.,
2020).
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Clarke et al. (2020) have discussed the relationship between punitive approaches and tenant
context. They argue that tenancy conditionality and sanctions can lead to lack of
understanding of the complex needs experienced by many tenants, and how these
complexities can shape tenant problems. While the broader context in place-managers 10 and
11’s account is unclear, they did associate the breach with the tenant having visitors, such as
tenants having ‘all their friends over’. Noise, property damage, and other disruptive
behaviours frequently occur by visitors to social housing rather than the tenants themselves
(Jacobs & Arthurson, 2003; Jones et al., 2014). Housing scholarship has demonstrated the
challenges tenants face in controlling visitors and visitor behaviour and that tenants require
support to empower them to better control who has access to their home (Jones et al., 2014).
Place-managers 10 and 11 did not discuss this context or other tenancy supports in addition to
the breach. Rather, they discussed the breach in isolation. While this approach contrasts with
contemporary literature on tenancy support, place-managers 10 and 11 still reported that it
was ‘amazingly successful’ in stopping disruptions, and in doing so may have co-produced a
sense of ontological security by sustaining the tenancies.
Other place-managers also reported on the effectiveness of VCAT, but described a
collaborative approach instead. This more supportive approach has gained recent attention in
housing scholarship. Approaches like this include working with tenants as partners to address
factors that underpin tenancy issues and utilising interagency mental health and psychosocial
support rather than punitive sanctions (Clarke et al., 2020; Parsell et al., 2022). Place-
manager 8 provided an example of this in which a tenant had been in rent arrears, with the
first payment plan having been unsuccessful, and that addressing this at VCAT had been a
‘positive experience’. They said:
We explained, “Look we want to get it [payment plan] formalised this time
because you know, the first payment plan didn’t work. And we’ll go to VCAT
and we’ll make that a bit of a joint [effort], you’re coming to VCAT, you get to
talk to the member, the member will have the conversation with you.” And it
was a really positive experience. And generally, I’ve found it is, like when the
tenant’s there, and if there’s a support worker from [organisation] as well, then
everyone’s involved and everyone’s on the same page.
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This approach is distinct from the punitive approach by its focus on co-producing ontological
security rather than prompting insecurity. Within this approach, however, ontological
insecurity still looms. In this instance, VCAT attendance still required a breach, and the
tenant was made aware they were failing to meet their tenancy obligations. But rather than
Place-manager 8 using insecurity to enact change, this approach simultaneously functioned to
co-produce certainty and constancy by establishing trust relationships that are central to
establishing ontological security (Giddens, 1984, 1991). Integrated support was used as the
mechanism for this. Trust relationships were extended to include the tenant, Unison, VCAT,
and the support worker, illustrated through framing the experience as ‘a joint’ effort, ‘really
positive’, and positioning a VCAT hearing as an opportunity for the tenant to have a
conversation with the VCAT member, with the end goal being to have a unified plan. Further,
blame for the tenure uncertainty was not explicitly assigned to the tenant. Instead, the tenancy
issue was externalised from the tenant by noting that the first payment plan ‘didn’t work’,
thereby sharing the onus of ontological insecurity. Here, establishing greater trust in the
collaboration of tenancy sustainment was used to develop tenant confidence in their capacity
to establish tenure certainty. Place-manager 8’s account suggests that while Unison policy,
combined with the tenant’s missed rental payments gave rise to a sense of insecurity, the
response worked to collaboratively co-produce ontological security.
Whether place-managers punitively or collaboratively co-produce ontological security may
be contingent upon two things. First, the breach type and severity—for example, whether the
breach is for rent arrears that only affects Unison, or for behavioural issues such as noise
disruption that affect neighbours, and therefore Unison, who then have to respond to other
dissatisfied tenants (explored in subsequent chapters). Second, the individual place-manager,
and their experience and perceptions of effective practices. The degree to which tenants
benefit from place-manager responses to breaches, and their support to maintain freedom
from housing insecurity, may vary. While both punitive and collaborative approaches were
effective, the literature suggests that the supportive, interagency approach is more beneficial
in addressing disruptive behaviours (Hickman et al., 2023; Parsell et al., 2022). In this
instance, the more supportive approach can help sustain the tenancy without the threat of
ontological insecurity, and as such, better facilitate the creation and sustainment of a sense of
home.
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5.5 Conclusion
This chapter has examined the factors that contributed to how social and affordable tenant
participants at North-East and North-West Burbs imagined home, and the value they derived
from this. The chapter built on Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) operationalisation of ontological
security by providing insight into the tenancy mechanisms that contribute to the conditions of
home for community housing tenants, and deepened understandings of the value community
housing tenants assign to these conditions. Here, tenant participants passively experienced
these mechanisms and markers to establish a sense of ontological security within their homes.
The ‘freedom from’ framework was used to draw attention to this point by highlighting how
home conditions were contextualised in tenant participants’ past experiences of insecurity.
First, I examined how the material constancy of ongoing tenure provided freedom from
housing insecurity, while the subsidised rent provided freedom from previous unaffordability.
The predictability of affordable rent enabled tenant participants to engage in previously
unavailable care resources. While basic care resources appeared rudimentary, tenant
participants valued them for enabling the experience of home as a place of comfort. Despite
employment, affordable tenant participants reported similar past and present experiences to
social tenant participants. Both had histories of housing insecurity and financial hardship and
reported the same gratitude for now having ongoing tenure and for being able to afford basic
care resources.
Second, I illustrated that, for those in single-person households, having autonomy over the
social components of home provided those tenant participants the freedom from past
experiences of risks to personhood and possessions. I drew attention to how having a suitable
social and material dwelling enabled tenant participants to enjoy solitude and privacy that
contributed to a sense of safety at home. Finally, I examined how place-managers were co-
producers of ontological security by supporting tenancy sustainment. Place-managers
engaged in preventative approaches to tenancy support. Information on tenancy obligations
and relationship building were utilised to inform tenants and identify tenancy challenges
early. When tenancies broke down, place-managers responded by supporting tenants in
breach of tenancy obligations to resolve such issues. Whether place-managers engaged in
punitive or collaborative approaches may have depended on the type or severity of breach
and individual place-manager characteristics. Therefore, there may be variation in the extent
to which responses to breaches support tenants to maintain freedom from housing insecurity.
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The next chapter will examine how tenant participants actively made home at North-West
and North-West Burbs.
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6. Making and maintaining home: ‘Freedom to’ actively
make home
6.1 Introduction
Home is an emotional experience—the dweller interacts with the social and material
dimensions to feel an emotional sense of home (Clapham, 2005). Here, the practice of
socially and materially interacting with the dwelling conjures emotions such as belonging and
a feeling of safety that is connected to place (Easthope, 2004). Such practices can be
understood as making home (Dupuis & Thorns, 1998; Clapham, 2005). This chapter
examines how social and affordable tenant participants made and maintained home, and the
components of different home dimensions that added meaning to their experiences. I argue
that material, social, and governing dimensions of home contributed to the emotional
experience of making and maintaining home. The chapter is structured by these three, often
intersecting, dimensions. The first two sections draw on tenant participant accounts to argue
that the material and social dimensions of home connected to tenancies provided reassurance
in the predictability and constancy of the social and material world, creating a sense of
control, belonging, and comfort. As home is unbounded, not delineated by the physical
boundary of the dwelling (Massey, 1992), homemaking extended from the private dwelling to
the shared space at the housing sites, and into the neighbourhood. I draw on Dupuis and
Thorns’ (1998) markers of home from their ontological security framework as a starting point
to explain how tenancy conditions contributed to the making and maintaining of home, and to
illustrate favourable ontological experiences tenant participants garnered from this, such as
routine, identity expression, and connection. Both social and affordable housing tenant
participants experienced and valued these tenure conditions in similar ways, and this was
consistent across the two housing sites. The third section uses staff accounts to examine how
governing practices collectively produced ontological security (Plage et al., 2023) by
supporting tenants to make and maintain home as place of social constancy, connection, and
belonging. Staff accounts also provide insight into governing limitations that mean the degree
to which Unison can support homemaking may be specific to the conditions of each site.
I argue that homemaking is made up of two phenomena. The previous chapter examined the
first, where tenant participants passively experienced tenure conditions as ‘freedom from’
past insecurities and threats, enabling them to imagine home. In this chapter I examine the
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second phenomenon, whereby tenant participants actively engaged in homemaking practices
to make and maintain their version of home. These were not binary experiences—tenant
participants who passively imagined home also actively made home, illustrating the
multidimensional nature of home. As with the preceding chapter, I again draw on Kearns et
al’s. (2000) ‘freedoms’ framework. Kearns et al. note having autonomy over home allows the
dweller the ‘freedom to’ use their home as they want. I build on this to examine how, in the
context of community housing, tenure conditions intersected with life histories and current
social contexts to enable tenant participants the freedom to use their home as they chose,
specifically to actively practise homemaking in ways that were meaningful to them.
6.2 Material dimensions of homemaking
6.2.1 ‘Freedom to’ establish routines in the neighbourhood
Dupuis and Thorns (1998) stipulate the material aspects of a house provide the spatial
conditions to make home from, in part, establishing routines around family life and rituals. In
their sample of New Zealand homeowners, understandings of home and routinised practices
did not extend into the neighbourhood. However, at North-West and North-East Burbs, the
location of the dwelling in the neighbourhood and the neighbourhoods’ amenities were
central to routinised homemaking, extending Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) ontological security
framework from the private dwelling into the neighbourhood. Proximity to supermarkets,
recreation centres, and education institutions provided the ‘freedom to’ establish daily
routines that enabled tenant participants to care for and manage health conditions and low
incomes, to fulfil family roles, and to care for wildlife, which led to a sense of comfort and
purpose. While the suburbs that North-East and North-West Burbs were situated in had vastly
different socioeconomic make-ups, neighbourhood amenities were similar. Chapter Four
examined how the area of North-East Burb had higher incomes and education levels, lower
population, and less cultural and ethnic diversity compared to the area of North-West Burb,
but had similar access to shops, hospitals, schools, and public transport. Access to these
amenities was valued and utilised consistently across the two housing sites.
Of relevance is the concept of the 20-minute neighbourhood, derived from Ebenezer Harry’s
(1902; cited in Macknass et al., 2023) Garden Cities of Tomorrow. Twenty-minute
neighbourhoods are safe, connected neighbourhoods where desired and necessary amenities
and opportunities, such as access to goods and services, particularly fresh food, groceries,
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health care, and employment and educational opportunities, are within a 20-minute walk for
residents (Alwaer & Coope, 2023; Chau et al., 2022). Access to necessary amenities is said to
improve public health and increase social cohesion (Alwaer & Coope, 2023; Chau et al.,
2022). While this is framed as a public or whole-of-population approach, tenant participants
at North-East and North-West Burbs highlighted the significance for low- and very low-
income households, who are less likely to have a car (Baker & Arthurson, 2007) and more
likely to live with health conditions (Freund et al., 2022) than the general population.
Personal circumstances shaped by their social and economic position informed how tenant
participants experienced and valued their 20-minute neighbourhood. Here, neighbourhood
benefits can be likened to the characteristics of making home. Daily routines enacted in the
neighbourhood reinforced a sense of predictability, constancy, and reliability in the social and
material world, creating a sense of security, comfort, and belonging in place.
Proximity to neighbourhood amenities was valued by tenant participants for the freedom to
build daily routines around accessing necessary places that supported their health and
wellbeing. For example, some tenant participants frequented the supermarket daily. An
inability to plan meals ahead of time, limited finances, and health conditions that reduced
how much could be carried shaped this routine. Robert and Harry, both social tenant
participants, explained:
Every day I go down to the shopping centre. Because I was diagnosed with a
heart problem, and I get paid every fortnight. I can’t carry too many bags at
once. (Robert, North-East Burb)
I’m out there every day, without a doubt. Because there’s always something that
I need. Um … because of limited finances. (Harry, North-East Burb)
Harry also experienced poor mental health. He explained the benefit he derived from daily
trips to a busy shopping centre: ‘It’s always a big hive of activity. So that makes me feel
better.’ Close proximity to public transport was also important for daily routines. For
example, Coraline, an affordable tenant participant at North-East Burb, noted that ‘the train
station is right there’. Coraline explained that ‘most days I go into the city’ to access a
women’s employment and social support service. Coraline said, ‘I’m there for a few hours
[per day]. Tapping away on a computer.’ Here, neighbourhood amenities provided access to
necessary supports in other locations.
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Dorothy, a social tenant participant, regularly attended the local leisure centre to manage her
chronic health condition and mental health:
At the leisure centre I have a class nearly every day, it’s yoga or tai chi, body
balance, or the gym. So, every day, for my own physical and mental health, I’ll
go to the leisure centre.
The leisure centre was walking distance from the housing site. This allowed Dorothy to visit
daily to care for her mental and physical health. Social housing and mixed-tenure policy
identify quality neighbourhoods as a mechanism for building social networks and increasing
social inclusion of social tenants (Arthurson, 2010). This objective has been used to justify
renewing low-income neighbourhoods through the process of gentrification, introducing
higher-income households to neighbourhoods through social housing redevelopment (Jama &
Shaw, 2017). However, tenant participant accounts illustrate neighbourhood amenities were
instead valued for addressing a baseline level of need. Proximity to neighbourhood amenities
provided the freedom to build daily routine around care and income needs. Routines are
predictable patterns of everyday life and through them people obtain and maintain confidence
in the predictability of their social and material environment (Giddens, 1984). From this, a
sense of ontological security is reinforced. Indeed, Dupuis (2012) argues that a predictable
home environment in which routines are performed is central to developing this trust in the
social and material world. For Harry, Robert, and Dorothy, building routines in the
neighbourhood reinforced predictability in the social and material environment, providing
reassurance that the neighbourhood would enable tenant participants to continue to care for
themselves with their modest incomes and health conditions. As such, their physical location
was associated with comfort and security.
For those with children, proximity to neighbourhood amenities supported family life,
broadening the idea that family life is enacted at home (Clapham, 2010; Dupuis & Thorns,
1998). Local amenities enabled family life and rituals to extend into the neighbourhood,
reinforcing a sense of home beyond the private dwelling. For Monika, an affordable tenant
participant, the convenience of managing a family while studying was regarded as a positive
of North-West Burb. She said:
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… the other convenient thing. I walk out the back of the building, drop [child]
off to school, walk straight across the road and I’m at TAFE. If someone had
said to me that, I mean before all this happened, oh my God you can literally
walk your son to school, and then walk to TAFE, I’d be like “wow!”
Living close to both her child’s school and her own education institution enabled Monika to
fulfil her parenting role with ease. Fazia, also an affordable tenant participant, attended the
local community centre with her children three afternoons a week. The centre had a
homework club and other activities such as sports. Fazia said, ‘When they finish the
homework, they have fun and play.’ Fazia discussed how helpful attending the community
centre was for her children. She said, ‘They go to homework club and they [staff] help them.
I have my son, he loves writing. He is good at drawing, arts, and they help him a lot.’
The thrice-weekly attendance at the community centre was routine for Fazia’s family,
considered beneficial for supporting her children’s academic progress. Monika and Fazia
identified different ways North-West Burb supported their families. For Monika, proximity to
education for her child and herself provided ease in her daily life. For Fazia, it was access to
additional educational and recreational support for her children. Home is associated with
routines that centre around family life and routines that reinforce the family system (Dupuis,
2012; Mallet, 2004). Further, home is also a place to enact identities, including parent
identities (Dupuis, 2012). Within the private dwelling this can be expressed as gendered or
role-specific homemaking practices (Dupuis, 2012). Monika and Fazia were able to enact
their parent identity and family routine in the local neighbourhood—their day-to-day life
revolved around this family role. Proximity to schools and community facilities provided the
freedom to establish this routine with greater ease.
At North-East Burb, the neighbourhood provided Robert and Harry the freedom to establish
routines of care for local wildlife. The value they derived from caring for wildlife draws
attention to the emotional benefits of routine. Giddens’ (1984) work on routine is relevant
here—he theorised that routines are often not consciously established but occur in the
background to unconsciously help ease anxieties. Robert and Harry provided insight into how
routines around caring for wildlife eased their anxiety. While they both derived
companionship from local wildlife, Robert also experienced a sense of calmness, and Harry, a
sense of purpose.
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Robert took Photo 6.1 to illustrate how the local wildlife was an extension of his home.
2Photo 6.1– A possum on the fence of Robert’s backyard
Robert’s routine consisted of sitting in his backyard at night, feeding neighbourhood
possums. Robert expressed care for the possums by doing research on the types of food that
possums should eat to ensure that he was feeding them food that was good for their health.
He said he ‘read up on it’ to find out that the best thing to feed possums was ‘just seeds and
things like that’. Robert discussed why this routine was significant to him. He said, ‘I
probably liked the serenity of being out in my backyard at night, and seeing the possums,
being close to the wildlife.’
Robert engaged in care for the possums while also enjoying their company. Robert identified
experiencing ‘serenity’. The unconscious routine of caring for and being with the wildlife in
Robert’s backyard contributed to establishing and reinforcing trust in the predictability of his
home environment to experience it as serene. Robert’s experience highlights the emotional
wellbeing derived from routine; the predictability in seemingly minor routines of daily life
relates to a deep sense of emotional security (Giddens, 1991).
Harry also established routine at North-East Burb by going out into the neighbourhood to
care for the local wildlife, providing him with purpose and connection. Ontological security
is attained through having purposeful routine (Giddens, 1984), and Harry found purpose
through care routines that helped ease social and emotional isolation. This is not uncommon.
Previous research shows that for those who have had experiences of housing insecurity such
as homelessness, companion animals can be a source of motivation for survival and a coping
mechanism in otherwise isolated environments (Kerman et al., 2019; Linz et al., 2021). Harry
illustrated how this can also be achieved through finding purpose with caring for wildlife.
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Harry described the possums and birds in the neighbourhood as ‘my family’ and ‘all I have
left’. He went on to explain their significance:
The worst part of it is waking up to nobody. But then again, I do have things
that I have to do. I have to feed my cockies. I have to feed lorikeets. I have to
feed my crested pigeons. And, in the evening, I have to go out and feed my
possums. I mean these things are probably all wrong. I shouldn’t be
encouraging these things to be dependent on me. I guess I’m being a bit selfish
but that’s my company.
For Harry, caring for the wildlife was both a coping mechanism for loneliness and for a lack
of purpose. Harry identified the challenge of waking up each day alone but stated that he gets
up out of need to care for the local wildlife. The predictability of routinised daily life brings
trust and combats risk in the social and material world (Power, 2022). Building a routine
around a purposeful activity contributed to Harry’s sense of home. Harry’s routine provided
him with assurance that he had value and counteracted feelings of loneliness. Having a
constant and predictable social and material environment, and having autonomy over daily
life provided the freedom for Harry to establish and reinforce routines of meaning and
connection.
6.2.2 ‘Freedom to’ personalise space
Personalising space is an expression of identity that creates emotional wellbeing such as a
sense of security, comfort, and belonging (Easthope, 2014; McCarty, 2020). The dweller uses
material possessions to interact with the dwelling so that the space reflects them (Easthope,
2014). Having confidence in the constancy of the social and material environment enabled
the tenant participants to personalise their dwelling, transforming it into a home—that is,
making home (Clapham, 2005; Dupuis & Thorns, 1998). This confidence in the social and
material environment provided freedom to access opportunities to engage in homemaking
activities. Autonomy is important here—having autonomy over the aesthetic of the built
environment enabled tenant participants to engage in homemaking practices. However,
autonomy, and the capacity to personalise a dwelling to make it home, is connected to tenure
(Ruonavaara, 2012). Dupuis and Thorns (1998) support this notion, finding that home
ownership provides the secure conditions necessary to express identity through personalising
the dwelling. In contrast, housing scholarship draws attention to how tenants, both private
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and social, have less control over the material dimensions of the dwelling compared to
homeowners, and so their capacity to turn a dwelling into home is restricted (Easthope, 2014;
Saunders, 1989). As discussed in the previous chapter, tenure security contributed to
ontological security, and this is elevated with ongoing tenure in social housing compared to
the instability of private rental. However, control over the built environment and associated
home modifications fall under the same legislative control for private and social tenants, and
they both face the same limitations in how they can modify a property to align with their
identity and values. Easthope (2014) argues that limited control over personalising their
dwelling negatively impacts on private tenants’ experiences of home and their sense of
security. However, Robert and Louisa demonstrated how home could still be made within
this context—they both expressed their identity through the practice of decorating and
gardening to make their dwellings a home.
Photo 6.2 – Robert’s backyard with pots, a garden bed, and furniture
Robert’s personalising of his backyard (see Photo 6.2) was an expression of his interests, and
the organisation of the garden was reflective of his own aesthetic. Robert’s backyard
improvements consisted of planting vegetables and fruit, adding garden furniture, laying a
patch of ‘fake grass’, and plans to ‘get a barbeque’. In addition, Robert said he spent
‘probably an hour a day’ gardening in his backyard. Photo 3 shows Robert’s view when
sitting in his backyard.
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Photo 6.3 – Robert’s view when sitting in his backyard
Robert also spent time relaxing in his backyard every day. He said:
It doesn’t matter how cold it is, or whether it’s teeming with rain; I like to get
out of the house, you know, out of the flat and just sit in the back garden and
have a chill out.
Robert referred to his backyard as a refuge and the place he sought for daily relaxation.
Personalisation contributes to a sense of safety (Clapham, 2005; Dupuis, 2012). Therefore, it
follows that the place Robert personalised was the area he sought for relaxation. Robert did
not have any negative comments about the internal aspect of his dwelling; however, his
account suggests that a prominent connection to home occurred in his backyard, a space he
associated with relaxation. This speaks to the ontological significance of personalised
homemaking practices, made possible for Robert through the material constancy.
Louisa personalised her home as an expression of her Aboriginality. The walls, ceiling, and
door openings were decorated with photos of family, items that she had made, maps of her
Country, and other images she had sourced. Louisa used Photo 4 to discuss that having these
photos displayed was a constant reminder of her identity. She said:
Well, the history of my mob is important to me. I like to be reminded as I walk
in that I’m walking in their shoes. Particularly that photo that looks like it’s the
middle. That’s a photo of my ancestors up on there as well. The black and white
one, next to the feather. They were the frontier warriors. It inspires me to
continue my research as well. I’m actually researching our family history. I’ve
done one volume, and I’m in the middle of doing another one.
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Photo 6.4 – Louisa’s loungeroom wall with photos and prints on display
Personalising her home reinforced Louisa’s identity as an Aboriginal woman and motivated
her to continue uncovering her family history. In response to the dominance of a Western
world view in the housing and home literature, Anderst et al. (2024) examined how
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples construct meanings of home. They found that
meanings of home are relational—home means connection to family, community, culture,
and country, and these relational connections contribute to a sense of belonging, security,
identity, and permanence. Many of these home experiences occur when living on or
travelling back to Country.15 Louisa’s example illustrates how homemaking can occur when
living in a sole-occupancy community housing dwelling. While Louisa’s home at North-East
Burb was geographically distant from her Country, she used material possessions, such as
photos and maps, to garner an emotional connection to her Country, family, community, and
ancestors.
Louisa had a second bedroom that she used for pursing interests such as craft and researching
her family history. She took numerous photos of the room, showing that it was fully
decorated, including the ceiling. Photo 5 is of the ceiling, covered in images she had sourced.
Louisa explained this created ‘a haven of nice, warm, [pause] a sort of cuddle space’.
15 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples refer to Country to describe the ‘lands, waterways and skies that
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are connected to, and the energy, knowledges, life-giving force,
and familial, cultural, spiritual, and ancestral ties that relate to being on Country’ (Anderst et al., 2024, p. 2).
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Photo 6.5 – Louisa’s ceiling decorated with images
The personalisation of the space created a sense of security and safety and conjured up
feelings of comfort. Louisa used material possessions to interact with the social and material
aspects of her dwelling to create a haven in which to perform important tasks associated with
her identity; that is, she made home. The previous chapter examined how having a secure
material and social base can provide a sense of safety in and of itself. However, the value
both Robert and Louisa derived from personalising space illustrated that experiencing a sense
of safety at home was established with more than just living free from external threats.
Rather, having autonomy over the material components of home provided the basis for
homemaking practices that extended on this sense of safety. Here, materiality was a conduit
for the emotional components of home. This extends Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) ideas of
identity construction to the realm of community housing, where tenant participants could,
with the security of ongoing leases, work around legislation that restricts home modification
to personalise spaces in ways that made home a place of comfort and safety.
6.3 Social dimensions of homemaking
6.3.1 ‘Freedom to’ have relationships of choice
Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) ontological security framework captures family life within daily
routines—they found that for homeowners, the social life at home consists of routinised
practices with predominantly family, and to a lesser extent, friends. However, family life for
social housing tenants can differ from this. While some households are made up of partners
and/or children, most social housing tenants are sole occupants (AIHW, 2024a; Taylor et al.,
2020). As such, rather than relationships at home being derived from routinised family
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practices, at North-West and North-East Burbs these relationships can be better explained by
Dupuis and Thorns’ marker of home as a place of privacy and feeling in control over the
dwelling. Having control over the social space and the material suitability of dwellings
provided the freedom to engage in the social aspects of home. Saunders and Williams (1988)
note that the traditional family kinship system has declined, and home is now a place to
engage in relationships with family members who live outside of the household. This was
true for tenant participants living as single-person households; while these tenant participants
lived alone, they had the freedom to enact family relationships with members residing
elsewhere, which they attributed to having a suitable material dwelling that they had
autonomy over.
Robert and Oscar identified that a benefit of their current housing included the freedom to
host family at their homes. They both compared this to their previous experience of living in
a rooming house where hosting family was not possible. Oscar explained that the suitability
of the space enabled this; having autonomy over the social aspects of home allowed him to
host his mother. Oscar said that his mother needed to travel to Melbourne frequently. Having
his ‘own space’ rather than a shared one meant that Oscar’s mother could ‘stay over a couple
of days’ on these occasions. Within the context of family relationships, feeling in control of
the home means being able to decide who has access to the home to then be able to engage in
relationships of the dweller’s choosing (Clapham, 2005; Kearns et al., 2000). For Oscar,
having this control over his home meant choosing who could and could not be there rather
than having to meet rooming house requirements such as sharing communal spaces with
other tenants and not being able to have guests stay over. Having such liberties at home
meant that Oscar could then offer hospitality to his mother.
Like Oscar, Robert compared the suitability of having his own dwelling with the unsuitability
of his previous rooming house as a place to engage in family and intimate relationships.
Robert’s experience provided an example of how the material, social, and emotional aspects
of home intersect. Robert compared the size of his current home at North-East Burb with his
previous small, bedsit-style room at the rooming house. He noted that he could now sit
comfortably in the lounge, something he had previously been unable to do. This materiality
interconnected with Robert’s emotional association to home, whereby he reported a sense of
pride with his current apartment compared to the embarrassment he had felt at the rooming
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house. This meant that Robert could now interact socially within his home by having his
daughter and her friends visit. He said:
I can feel proud to bring someone here. If you know what I mean. Like my
daughter and her friends have come to visit. I’m not embarrassed about
bringing them into my pad. Whereas in the boarding house, I felt like, this is
shit, you know [laughs]. And, you couldn’t have someone come around. You
can have someone come around here. You can sit in the lounge, watch a video
with me. You couldn’t do that in a boarding house. I mean, for God’s sake, the
whole room with the kitchen and the shower was as big as that. That block there
(motions to room).
Robert’s experience draws attention to the blending of private and public boundaries within
home (Santos et al., 2018), wherein the boarding house space was so limited that private
areas such as a bathroom were too close to the kitchen and lounge. Santos et al. (2018) states
that separating public and private areas is essential within a home. Robert’s experience
illustrated why: the blending of these spaces contributed to Robert feeling low self-esteem
and embarrassment.
Robert continued to discuss how the emotional and material aspects of home provided by his
property at North-East Burb also gave him the opportunity to pursue romantic relationships.
He said:
Say I met a girl, which I won’t, because I’m not looking. But, say you brought
a girl over, and you want to cook tea, whatever, you can’t do that in a boarding
house. You’ve got no family, no homely sort of chance in a boarding house.
Here, no problem.
The distinction Robert drew between the boarding house and his apartment at North-East
Burb was the freedom to use the space as he would like. This created a sense of home, and
from that, a sense of pride. Robert noted that having this autonomy at home enabled
relational choice. While he did not want to pursue a romantic relationship at the time of being
interviewed, having the means to do so should he wish was important. Personal control is
linked to self-esteem (Clapham, 2010), so Robert’s comparison of the shift from feeling
embarrassed about his housing to expressing pride in his place highlights the emotional
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connection and identity that people can derive from the privacy and suitability of their
dwellings. Homeownership is seen as a rite of passage into adulthood and is associated with
achievement and a source of pride (Dupuis & Thorns, 1998; Kearns et al., 2000). Kearns et
al. (2000) found social tenants also obtain feelings of pride and status from their homes.
Robert’s account suggests that the perception of status is highly contextual and influenced by
past experiences that are shaped by social structures and contexts. Robert was a social
housing tenant but compared to his experience of growing up in an orphanage, and
experiencing homelessness since adolescence, making a home was a source of pride.
Considering his life history, having a social rental property where he can live by himself and
make a home, is perhaps a similar feeling of accomplishment that people from more
privileged backgrounds experience when they purchase a property.
6.3.2 ‘Freedom to’ have pets as family
Pets played a central role in family life and homemaking for some tenant participants. Dupuis
and Thorns (1998) argue that home is made from the social interactions that occur within the
material space, namely family. These social interactions that occur within the dwelling make
a house a home. The emotional bonds and connections are associated with the dwelling
through the social life that occurs within the space. Understanding pets to be family members
is a relatively new concept (Irvine & Cilia, 2017). Part of the change in traditional kinship
systems has been an increase in the social and emotional significance that pets play within
family. Care obligations for pets shape daily life. This creates and deepens the emotional
bond between pet and human, whereby humans become attached to pets for companionship
and emotional support (Irvine & Cilia, 2017). This bond is commonly reflective of parent-
child like relationships (Irvine & Cilia, 2017; Power, 2008). Power (2008) connects pets-as-
family with house-as-home. Houses are the primary space within which pets-as-family enact
care and develop emotional bonds and attachment between human and pet (Power, 2008). By
drawing the connection between pets-as-family and family making home, the importance of
pets in homemaking practices is identified. As such, pets contribute to homemaking through
the family-like interactions between them and their human.
Pets-as-family contributed to homemaking for some tenant participants. The experiences of
Emir, a social tenant participant, and Adrian, an affordable tenant participant, illustrate the
significance of pets in making home and provide insight into how community housing
conditions can facilitate this important process. A constant material environment provides
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permanence and predictability (Dupuis and Thorns, 1998). The material conditions tied to
their tenancy related to the freedom to have pets; predictability from affordability and tenure
security fostered this context for Emir and Adrian. Their discussions identified that these
tenure conditions provided the capacity to have pets, but they still made material sacrifices
for their pets, signifying the family-like relationship.
Emir’s cat was prominent in many of the conversations I had with him during fieldwork.
Emir’s account drew attention to how central his cat was to his daily life in terms of how he
spent his time and money. For example, Emir said he walked his cat ‘twice or sometimes
three times a day. Because I want her to get fresh air, get out for some exercise’, showing
how his daily life included routinised care for his cat. Emir continued by saying: ‘I speak to
them like my children.’ Emir also made parent-like sacrifices by spending more money on
nutritional food for his cat than himself. For example, Emir purchased a ‘$7 steak’ for his cat.
Emir said he does not eat red meat but gets this for his cat because of, ‘animal love, you look
after them’. Ideally, Emir’s income-to-living expense ratio would be such that both he and his
cat could have a nourishing diet. Having the financial capacity to provide care for a pet is
often a vulnerability for people experiencing housing insecurity (Cleary et al., 2021), but the
material affordability and predictability of his community housing removed this vulnerability
for Emir.
Adrian had a strong emotional bond with his dog. Many of Adrian’s stories were centred
around his dog, illustrating how the dog was an integral part of Adrian’s daily life. For
example, Adrian’s motivation for a clean housing site was for the safety of his dog. His dog
was also a mechanism for interacting with his neighbours. Adrian said a neighbour would
‘ring me up and say she wants to see [name], the dog’ or that children would initiate
interaction through his dog. He said, ‘If they [children] saw me walk in, they’d call me out
“Adrian, [dog’s name], come downstairs” you know, and they play with the dog’.
Neighbourly interactions are an important part of making home (Cheshire et al., 2021). As a
single person living in a housing site that was mixed with families and singles, Adrian’s dog
was a mechanism for extending the social component of home to include interactions with
other households. Building on the idea of pets-as-family, Adrian’s dog functioned similarly to
children in a comparable context, whereby children act as a bridge to foster relationships
between other adults and children (Chaskin et al., 2013).
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Adrian’s bond was further highlighted through the consideration he showed his dog in future
housing plans. Adrian, an affordable tenant participant, said that he wanted to leave North-
West Burb but noted the challenge of finding a private rental property with a pet. Adrian
considered relinquishing his dog but decided he could not. He said:
I’ve been trying to move out of here for the past year. But because I have a dog,
going back into the private rental market is really difficult. Really difficult. I
even got to the point where I was going to surrender him, as much as it killed
me. But then, I was in the process of doing that and I thought, “I can’t do that”.
There’s no way, you know.
Adrian’s predicament is reflective of others with pets wanting to secure a property in the
private rental sector. Tenants must choose between relinquishing a pet with which they have
a strong emotional bond or compromising on housing choice due to limited availability of
pet-friendly properties paired with a competitive market that provides landlords more
opportunity to approve households without pets (Power, 2017). In Victoria, the Residential
Tenancy Act 1997 was amended in 2020 so that landlords cannot unreasonably deny requests
by tenants to have a pet. As this is relatively new legislation, to date there is no empirical data
on the impact this legislative change has had on the experiences of potential tenants with pets
securing private rental properties. Still, for Adrian, having the security of ongoing tenancy
while also having the autonomy to keep his dog meant that he could continue to reside
securely at North-West Burb until a suitable alternative was found without surrendering his
dog and losing that emotional tie.
6.3.3 ‘Freedom to’ engage in neighbouring practices
A gap in Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) framework is the role of neighbours, those being people
we live close to, in contributing to home. The researchers’ focus on homeowners may explain
this—financial and other types of constraints experienced by low- and very-low-income
households make them more reliant on neighbours for social and emotional support (de
Souza, 2022). In contrast, middle-class households are less dependent on place, and so
neighbouring practices are underpinned by a desire to maintain class status (de Souza, 2022)
rather than a condition of homemaking. Good relations with neighbours are known to have a
positive effect on a sense of home (Cheshire et al., 2021). Homemaking includes socially
inhabiting space through relational activities and relationships, including with neighbours
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(Baker, 2013; Mallet, 2004). Interacting with neighbours contributes to a sense of home
through building familiarity, comfort through mutual care, and belonging (Cheshire et al.,
2021, Duyvendak 2011; Mee & Vaughan, 2012). Neighbouring relationships and practices
are moulded by social and material need in the face of economic marginalisation and social
isolation (Boyce, 2006; Cheshire & Bulgar, 2016), and for some, neighbours are the only
source of support due to lack of other family relationships (Boyce, 2006; de Souza, 2022). In
North-East and North-West Burbs, living alongside others with shared social and economic
conditions provided the freedom to engage in neighbouring practices that were beneficial to
making home. At times, these practices were a mechanism for Dupuis and Thorns’ (1999)
markers of home, reinforcing home as constant and secure or emphasising the importance of
privacy. In other instances, neighbouring practices departed from Dupuis and Thorns’
markers, and instead reinforced emotional experiences of home, such as connection and
belonging.
Emir and Adrian highlighted how their social and economic context rationalised their
neighbouring practices. Emir discussed the importance of what he called ‘neighbourship’—
the supportive relationships that you build with your neighbours. Physical proximity of
neighbours compared to that of family underpinned this. As noted during observational
fieldwork:
Neighbours are really important: “I try to teach them here the neighbour is
your closest person”. Emir said neighbours are physically closer than family,
they can be there when something goes wrong.
While Emir emphasised the importance of neighbours due to the distance of family, Adrian
interacted with his neighbours due to an absence of family and friends in his life. He said:
… if I gave you my mobile phone, there’s nothing on there. I just receive calls
and receive text messages and whatever it might be and that’s all. That’s why
there’s a couple of us here that we just, we don’t live in each other’s pockets,
but we just look out for each other.
Neighbouring practices provided assurances and peace of mind, highlighting the role of
neighbours for low-income households in contemporary Western liberal society. In pre-
modern society, localised kinship was a key context for trust that led to feeling ontologically
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secure (Giddens, 1991). This was characterised by obligation regardless of personal feelings,
providing a stable and reliable social connection. In a globalised world, the role of kinship in
building localised trust has changed and for some has diminished, particularly when kin may
not live nearby. As such, the role of neighbours acts, in part, to provide this sense of security
(Boyce, 2006). Adrian and Emir provided examples of how neighbours offered a sense of
assurance for both tenure groups, but for different reasons. Emir’s rationale was framed as a
crisis response—neighbours were best placed to support one another ‘when something goes
wrong’, and to do this, a closeness between neighbours is required. For Adrian, a lack of
family or other support increased reliance on neighbours to fulfil that role. Adrian and Emir’s
accounts also highlight how neighbouring takes on different forms to enact individual
versions of home (Baker, 2016). Emir emphasised the need for closeness, but his attempts to
‘teach others’ at North-West Burb suggested that not everyone valued or wanted to form this
kind of bond. Adrian identified the need for boundaries, stating that ‘we don’t live in each
other’s pockets’, illustrating how neighbouring was a negotiation between connection and
privacy. These positions exemplified the two types of neighbouring practices identified at
North-East and North-West Burbs.
6.3.3.1 Neighbouring practice one: Balancing connection with privacy
The first type of neighbouring practice was characterised as a relationship that was functional
and managed, striking a balance between connection and privacy (Baker, 2013; Stokoe,
2006), understood by McGahan (1972) as being ‘friendly, but not a friend’ (p. 40). This type
of neighbouring relationship, made up of mutual assistance and solidarity, makes and
reinforces home to be a place of comfort and familiarity (Cheshire et al., 2021; Mee, 2009).
At North-East and North-West Burbs, practical and material assistance derived from
familiarity acted as a mechanism to reinforce Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) sense of security
and constancy, offering material and emotional comfort at home. Offers of assistance
indicated a level of familiarity with neighbours while maintaining relational distance. For
example, Adrian provided practical support to a neighbour less physically able than himself.
He said:
One of the guys had their carpets steam cleaned. I know physically he was not
able to bring the sofas and whatever. I said, “Come on, let’s have a coffee
together, and whatever, and I’ll help you bring your sofas back in.” Half an
hour later that’s it, and you’re on your way.
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Adrian’s familiarity and engagement in his neighbour’s life was illustrated by awareness of
his neighbour’s physical limitations and knowledge of having his carpets cleaned. While
Adrian included social connection during this event, it was time limited, enacting his version
of home but constraining neighbouring to ‘half an hour’. Low-income households have
greater reliance on neighbours for support with these necessary but more mundane or small
services (Boyce, 2006; Mee, 2009) which Cheshire and Bulgar (2016) argue helps create the
conditions that lead to more intense forms of neighbouring. It is within this context that
Adrian enacted boundaries to protect privacy and avoid more overt neighbouring practices.
When the coronavirus arrived in Melbourne at the start of 2020, a neighbour offered to do
Dorothy’s shopping, knowing her heightened vulnerability due to a health condition. Dorothy
said:
She’s actually given me her phone number and said if I need any shopping done,
if I need anything, because she’s aware of I’m not supposed to be out there, but
I want to go out there. She’s lovely.
Neighbouring practices in low-income areas often respond to crisis situations, and this
rallying together provides a sense of security—knowing support is available should it be
required offers peace of mind (Boyce, 2006). Dorothy’s account suggested it was unlikely
she would utilise this offer, but showed Dorothy valued the gesture. The offer of practical
support reinforced home by fostering an emotional response and connection with the
neighbour. This also reinforced a sense of social and material security and constancy at home
through knowing practical care was available, providing reassurance in an unstable time.
Harry, at North-East Burb, provided material support, including food, for neighbours and
their pets. He said, ‘I’ve got dog biscuits in my pantry, you know, dog food, I’ve got stuff,
tea, coffee, whatever you want, I’m always happy to share.’ Financial precarity is often
reported within social housing populations (Power & Mee, 2020; Morris, 2009; Taylor et al,
2020). In their longitudinal study examining social housing tenancy sustainment, Taylor et al.
(2020) found social housing tenants reported financial stress, with many going without
essential items, such as food, and needing to seek assistance from family and friends, or
welfare agencies. This contextualised Harry’s neighbouring practices—sharing basic pantry
items and pet food in the face of economic marginalisation. Practical and material support are
often cited as neighbourly exchanges (Boyce, 2006; Mee, 2009; Stokoe, 2006). In this
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instance, material support was provided as an act of solidarity during shared financial
hardship. Such acts of assistance engender belonging and a sense of home (Mee, 2009).
Children are often the nexus of social interactions and neighbouring practices (Arthurson,
2010; Chaskin, 2013; de Souza, 2019; Van Eijk, 2012). Parents tend to do more socialising
with other neighbours—the overlap between housing sites and schools, and the interactions
between their children increase opportunities for interaction and social connection (Van Eijk,
2012). Further, school pick-up and childminding are common acts of mutual support between
neighbours within low-income neighbourhoods to ease the pressures and burdens of daily
family life (Boyce, 2006). At North-West Burb, childminding was offered as support to ease
the burden of parenting during illness. For example, Monika, a single mother, said a
neighbour minded her son when she was unwell. Monika said, ‘She just took [son], and I was
laying in the bed. I could hear him playing and happy. And she was just watching all the kids
and stuff.’
The neighbour’s assistance enabled Monika to rest while her child could play outside. Fazia,
who had four children, one of whom had a health condition that required regular hospital
visits, also received childminding support from a neighbour. She said:
Maybe if I’m coming from the hospital, I’m late. I tell her [neighbour] maybe
they pick up my boys. They can stay in the house with you. Yes, yes, I have a few
… We help, if you need any help, we do that. Yes. But not all. Most, three, four
[neighbours]. It’s good. We get help from neighbours. But the one you trust, the
one you know. Not any.
While parents have increased interaction, they are also more selective about whom to interact
with due to concerns for children’s safety (Van Eijk, 2012). Fazia’s account is an example of
this. Fazia noted support was only with a select few neighbours whom she trusted. Trust is
central to ontological security. Trust in the reliability and predictability of the social and
material environment fosters a sense of security (Giddens, 1991). Within this context, trust in
the reliability of neighbours to temporarily care for and protect children at North-West Burb
was core to Fazia engaging in neighbouring practices. While Fazia noted this trust was only
with a few neighbours, this was sufficient to receive practical family support within the
home. This was in the context of limited social resources. Monika was a single parent whose
own family lived interstate, and Fazia, who had four children and a husband working full-
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time, did not have family nearby. As such, they both required support. Balancing the need for
support with trust illustrated how parents evaluate environments and manage neighbourly
interactions to maintain home as a safe place (Chaskin et al., 2013).
6.3.3.2 Neighbouring practice two: Engendering closeness and belonging
The second approach to neighbouring enacted a version of home that had greater emphasis on
connection and closeness (Baker, 2013; Cheshire et al., 2021; Mee & Vaughan, 2012),
derived from providing social and emotional support. Here, social dimensions of home
intersected with the emotional dimensions, making and reinforcing a sense of home based on
intimacy, connection, and belonging. This consisted of tenant participants spending frequent
and/or extended periods of time together, sharing aspects of their lives. For example, Emir, at
North-West Burb, discussed how a neighbour visited him at ‘nine pm’ and did not leave until
‘seven in the morning’. Emir said his neighbour needed to ‘vomit everything out’. Emir
explained: ‘We talk. We talk. People missing communication. Once they start talking, time
flies.’
Louisa, at North-East Burb, described a family-like relationship with some of her neighbours.
She said, ‘We just have a yarn. Talk about what’s going on and things like that. Yeah, it’s
like family.’
Hanna identified how her social connections at North-West Burb addressed social isolation:
It’s very good. It gets you out of the house, meeting with people. Exchange with
stories, and you know, I, you don’t feel lonely when you meet people and spend
time with them, you know.
These accounts are reflective of the bonding of people in place, where connection and
belonging are associated with a sense of home (Mee, 2009; Watt, 2021) fostered through
spending time together and communicating. In Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) framework of
ontological security, this kind of connection and sense of belonging is derived from routines
that revolve around family. Within the context of community housing, where many live
alone, practices stretch beyond family and the dwelling, whereby neighbours fulfil this
relational aspect of home. Tenant participants provided examples of neighbouring practices
that were indicative of more intimate connections: Emir’s analogy of a neighbour ‘vomiting’
out their hardships suggests a sense of emotional support and safety with his neighbour,
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Louisa likened her neighbourly relationships to family, while Hanna identified that the
mutual sharing of life experiences addressed social isolation. These sentiments conjure ideas
of intimacy and belonging that reinforce a sense of home. Such relationships are a shift from
the idea that good neighbours should be friendly but not friends (McGahan, 1972; Stokoe,
2006). This type of neighbouring—more intimate and connected, with less emphasis on the
need for boundaries or privacy—is not reported in neighbouring research in private housing
made up of owner occupiers and private tenants (Baker, 2013; Stokoe, 2006), but is evident
within other social housing or low-income environments (Boyce, 2006; Cheshire & Bulgar,
2016; Mee, 2009). This suggests that this type of neighbouring is shaped by more challenging
and isolated social conditions common to social and affordable tenants. Just as mutual
assistance was shaped by these social and economic factors, so was the need for seeking out
deeper social and emotional connections with neighbours.
6.4 Governing dimensions of homemaking
6.4.1 Governing practices to support homemaking
Housing governance is an important aspect of home for community housing tenants. This
section builds on Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) ontological security framework, which,
expanded from the context of homeowners, means that the role of housing governance was
necessarily absent from their research. Governing practices at Unison that built relationships
with and between tenants contributed to home being socially constant, reinforcing a sense of
security, connection, and belonging. Two types of governance co-produced the making of
home: first, regular and informal interactions between tenants and staff; and second,
organised events or activities to build relationships between tenants. Both were considered an
effective approach by Unison staff to foster belonging, connection, and ownership of the
housing site.
Informal interactions consisted of individual, frequent interactions between Unison staff and
the tenants to build rapport. As examined in the previous chapter, these kinds of interactions
were used to support material constancy through tenancy sustainment. However, informal
interactions were also used to address isolation and support tenants to feel more connected to
place, and in doing so, create a sense of social constancy. In this sense, informal interactions
had a dual purpose in the co-production of ontological security—informal interactions were
intended to facilitate, in part, the conditions from which ontological security could emerge,
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and aimed to sustain a sense of social constancy from which home could be made, developing
an emotional connection with the housing site. Staff reported this was initiated by tenants,
who frequently visited their Unison on-site office for social interaction. Executive 1
explained this process:
There are tenants who pop down all the time to see [name] who’s our
receptionist and they just pop in to say g’day. [name] might be the only person
who has a chat with them that day, that’s the reality of a lot of the people within
our housing.
Homes are made, in part, by the relationships that occur within them (Clapham, 2010;
Dupuis, 2012), and Executive 1’s account highlights the central role Unison played in co-
producing the relational dimensions of home. While many offices were staffed with place-
managers, Executive 1 noted it was not necessarily the place-manager, but a representative of
the organisation, whom tenants sought. Executive 1 drew attention to the social isolation of
the tenants, identifying Unison staff as the only social contact some tenants would have in a
day. Social tenants have fewer social contacts than other tenure types (Franklin & Tranter,
2011; Ziersch & Arthurson, 2005). Reasons for this include the following: higher rates of
mental illness such as social anxiety or depression that can inhibit social relationships;
isolation and exclusion due to vulnerabilities that make them eligible for social housing; or,
as a response to safety issues at their housing sites where social tenants isolate within their
private dwellings to feel safe (Tually et al., 2020). Indeed, tenant participant experiences
discussed in the preceding section illustrated their reliance on neighbours due to having fewer
contacts or family members that reside far away. While some tenants formed relationships
with their neighbours, staff accounts suggest that Unison played an important role for those
unable or less willing to do this. Here, Unison aimed to provide tenants with social
constancy: their informal interactions intended to create familiarity and continuity, to then
contribute to a sense of trust in the social environment.
Unison’s second approach to co-producing home consisted of facilitating events or activities.
These were an opportunity to develop relationships with Unison and between tenants, and
included house meetings, social events like barbeques, or educational or upskilling events
like cooking classes, each occurring with various frequency. Such activities are often framed
as community building or development, used to improve social tenants’ socioeconomic
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position through their participation (McKee, 2009, Simmons & Birchall, 2007; Tually et al.,
2020). However, staff accounts pointed to how social connections established during these
activities made and reinforced a sense of home. For example, house meetings were cited as a
frequent event that place-managers used to engage tenants and were seen as an opportunity
for tenants to socialise with one another and to be informed about their housing sites and their
neighbourhoods. Place-managers reported the benefits of this. Place-manager 4 said such
events, ‘make them feel like home’, and Place-manager 10 said engagement meant tenants
had ‘a stake in it all’. Place-manager 1 observed neighbourly practices that were reflective of
home after a house meeting. They said:
They’re all at the house meeting. We stayed at the end because we had some
lunch for them and just seeing the way that they interacted with each other,
they’re involved in each other’s lives, there’s friendships there, and they really
take ownership of their property and the estate, and it’s like their home.
Two dimensions of homemaking were raised. First, the relational dimension where
connection and belonging were derived from social interaction and developing friendships
with neighbours. Enacting social relationships reinforces home as familiar, meaningful,
constant, and safe (Clapham, 2010; Mallet, 2004; Saunders & Williams, 1988). Second,
ownership or having a ‘stake in it all’. Ownership can be felt and expressed in different
ways—ownership is often associated with feeling a sense of control over the social and/or
material environment (Clapham, 2005, 2010; Dupuis & Thorns, 1998). The correlation
between social interactions within place and a sense of ownership is less examined in home
scholarship. Place-managers 1 and 10 provided insight into this. Their statements above
suggested social interaction fostered a bond to place that made tenants feel a part of, or sense
of belonging to, where they live. In this instance, rather than ownership being associated with
control, tenants’ emotional connection derived from social participation at the housing sites
fostering a sense of ownership over the housing site.
Place-manager 5, whose property portfolio included North-East Burb, shared feedback that
they had received from tenants who had said events had made them feel more social
connection and had addressed isolation. They said:
[Events] bring a sense of belonging to the tenant, more of them feel more
connected. We have quite a few people that had stated that they were feeling
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quite isolated a while ago, and doing things with other tenants has made them
feel more connected and not alone, like it has been words straight out of tenants’
mouths, that a few of them are not feeling so isolated anymore, which is
probably the best outcome.
Sheppard et al. (2021) and Tually et al. (2022) also found that social connections, developed
through facilitated activities, were a source of companionship. Feeling more connected and
less isolated through engaging in the social environment captures the dynamic and individual
homemaking process. Tenants commence their tenancy with different housing and
socioeconomic histories that inform how they interact with their homes. Place-manager 5
believed that participating in facilitated events supported a shift from isolation and increased
connection to the social and material environment. Place-manager 5’s account suggests that
these tenants were progressing from establishing a sense of ontological security towards
making home—they had a secure material environment, but the social and emotional
dimensions of home were still being developed through engagement with Unison.
Ontological security for these tenants was perhaps short of that reported above by Place-
manager 1, who instead observed tenants making and reinforcing home through continued
social relationships with neighbours. The different components of ontological security
reported by staff emphasise the need for Unison’s dual approach of both informal interactions
and more formalised activities to address the unique and individual homemaking needs of
tenants.
6.4.2 Mechanisms that support homemaking
Two key mechanisms were central to Unison contributing to Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998)
marker of home as socially constant: first, on-site presence from either Unison or the local
external service provider, and second, the built environment. However, social and material
differences between Unison’s housing sites meant that the degree to which the social
dimensions of home could be made appeared to be site dependent. On-site presence was
instrumental to the social dimensions of collective homemaking involving Unison staff, local
external service providers (LESP), and tenants. Unison partnered with LESP to provide
tenancy support, including individual tenancy support, connecting tenants with the
neighbourhood and facilitating on-site activities. In return, LESP had ‘nomination rights’ to
dwelling vacancies when they became available at that given site. This arrangement meant
that LESP were also part of the collective homemaking process. Place-managers identified
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that on-site presence enabled ‘more informal discussions’ between staff, and staff availability
to provide ‘immediate support’ to tenants, while the increased frequency of interactions
between staff and tenants contributed to greater ‘buy in’ and trust from tenants. Giddens
(1991) connects trust, which is fundamental to ontological security, with confidence in the
reliability of persons and systems. On-site presence, whether from Unison or LESP, enabled
instantaneous responsiveness that reinforced to tenants the reliability of staff and the service
provider. Place-managers noted how this shaped tenants’ engagement with their home—‘buy
in’ from tenants illustrated they trusted and had confidence in the constancy of their home.
Place-manager 1 emphasised the importance of this homemaking mechanism by comparing
housing sites that did not have on-site presence. They said:
The biggest difference is being on site. The properties where we’re on site that’s
where we have, I guess, the most buy in, and the most interaction. If we’re not
co-located it can be a little more difficult, I guess, to show our presence to catch
tenants and speak with them and interact with them.
In addition to co-location, Place-manager 1 identified how continuity between tenancy
support and facilitating activities was beneficial to tenants. Place-manager 1 used the
example of North-West Burb, saying:
At North-West Burb the buy in’s from all different types of tenants. We do a food
bank, and we pretty much get all tenants come through, which is really good.
The arts and crafts, we get most of the children on the block come down. But I
think that’s mainly because [support partner] service the whole building so
there’s that interaction between the activities that are run, and the supports that
they receive.
Place-manager 1’s account indicates continuity between informal interactions and facilitated
events contributed to tenants feeling more ownership over the space, enhancing a sense of
home. Trust in the constancy of others is important to feeling ontologically secure (Giddens,
1991). In this context, continuity across support types worked to create a constant
environment, necessary for making and sustaining home (Dupuis, 2012). Continuity in
support types draws a connection between sustaining tenancies and homemaking—having the
same staff deliver both builds familiarity, reinforcing constancy in the social environment.
Place-manager 1’s ideas are supported by tenant experiences in other housing research that
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found tenants valued accessible and responsive on-site housing governance and social
support (Carey & Johnson, 2022; Clarke et al, 2022; Sheppard et al., 2021), and continuity
with key staff (Bimpson et al., 2022). Whether this was LESP or Unison did not seem to be
important. Rather, having a consistent presence at the housing site to build familiarity and
rapport with tenants was what mattered.
However, this homemaking mechanism faced resourcing challenges and was limited by
partnerships dependent on fostering specific relationships, rather than a systematic approach.
Resourcing Unison’s on-site presence was an ongoing issue. Executive 1 noted how in these
cases, LESP played a key role in creating this instead. They said:
One of our challenges in place-management teams is we’re very thinly spread
because keeping our offices staffed, it’s a permanent challenge for us. So,
support partnerships are important, but it’s just an ongoing battle to find and
maintain good support partnerships.
Limited in-house resourcing presented a challenge in having valuable on-site presence. Staff
resourcing is a known challenge for social landlords, particularly for organisations that have
dispersed housing stock (Hickman et al., 2023; Ruming, 2015) like Unison. Partnering with
LESP can address this challenge but creating and sustaining this arrangement was also
difficult. Executive 1 provided insight into how a good relationship was key to partnership
success:
Partnerships are always dependent on the relationships, and I don’t think
people talk about that enough. I’ve had some fantastic partnerships over the
years that work really well with good relationships at CEO level, at
management level, at service delivery level, but they take a lot of work, and you
lose one key person and it falls in a heap.
Such challenges are not unique to Unison. Sheppard et al. (2022) found housing and support
partnerships in Canada were also dependent on the relationship with individual housing
workers. Inconsistency in management approaches and low numbers of housing staff working
across multiple sites hindered trusting relationships. While Sheppard et al.’s research focused
on practice level relationships, Executive 1 pointed to the relational reliance across three tiers
of the organisation: CEO, management, and service delivery. Jaques et al.’s (2023) case study
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on partnerships with social housing providers and health services in NSW also found staff
turnover and role change caused delays in support provision, but argued that organisational
commitment and infrastructure enabled the partnership to endure these changes. For Unison,
dependence on individual relationships across the organisation made this a precarious
arrangement rather than a sound systematic approach that could assure the partnership
beyond individual staff. Executive 1 identified how this restricted Unison’s contribution to
homemaking, deemed important for fostering a sense of constancy for familiarity, belonging,
and connection to place.
The built environment was also a mechanism that contributed to Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998)
marker of home as socially constant. Both this chapter and the previous one have reinforced
the importance of a constant and secure material environment in imagining and making
home. Place-manager accounts illustrated that the formation and usability of the built
environment was also important for this. This draws attention to the reliance between the
social and material dimensions of home, whereby the two intersect to shape how home can be
made. Built environments that had shared and inviting spaces provided the opportunity to
foster the social dimensions of home; however, as noted by the place-managers, not all
housing sites in the Unison portfolio had this. In those cases, a lack of space where events
could be held safely hindered the co-production of ontological security. Place-manager 5
made this observation, saying:
I think it’s definitely got to do with the space available for them to actually meet
with each other.
[Group agrees]
Place-manager 5 continued to provide an example where Unison could facilitate frequent
activities for tenants:
We have community BBQs and stuff frequently. I’m out there every week and
we have morning tea and stuff and that, because it is, I suppose, a lot smaller
as well and there is open space, and there are rooms that we can foster that
sense of community.
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A smaller housing site with usable shared space meant more frequent activities. Place-
manager 10 contrasted this with limited shared space at another housing site that made
hosting events unsafe:
I think at a couple of mine, there isn’t much space at all. We have talked about
it and we are trying to address it, but literally, there’s no way you can hold
anything safely.
In addition to availability of space, the aesthetic of the shared space was also raised as a
factor. Place-manager 1 compared the entry point of one building that leads to a ‘beautiful
courtyard’ to another building that entered onto ‘gloomy stairs’. As such, the degree to which
tenants may want to interact with one another may ‘just depend on the property’. Here,
materiality was a conduit for social interactions. Social housing research has found that the
built environment, with elements such as compact and walkable neighbourhoods, medium- to
high-density living, mixed use of space, and shared entrance ways, can facilitate frequent,
informal interactions between neighbours (Baxter, 2017, Hicks, 2020; Morris, 2019), and that
neighbourhood infrastructures such as community centres and libraries can integrate tenants
with the wider community (Tually et al., 2020). However, place-managers identified that
there was also the need for spaces that enabled intentional interactions on the housing sites to
aid homemaking. On a practical level, this included space large enough to hold events, and on
an emotional level, a space that people would want to spend time in. Place-manager 1’s
comparison between spaces that were ‘beautiful’ and ‘gloomy’ can be understood as
atmosphere, that is, a sense of place or feel of a room, brought about by the material
aesthetics and emotional responses to spaces (Billie et al., 2015; Hicks, 2020). Certain
atmospheres can contribute to the creation of a sense of home. For example, the use of light
can make people feel exposed or less exposed, shaping experiences of comfort, connection,
and security (Billie, 2015; Hicks, 2020). Place-manager 1’s account suggested tenants
avoided a gloomy area but spent time together in a more aesthetically pleasing space. Here,
the emotional response to the material environment intersected to facilitate or hinder social
connection. However, disparities between the amount of room and the aesthetics of built
environments between housing sites impacted on place-managers’ capacity to facilitate
activities for tenants, and therefore shaped their opportunity to facilitate a constant social
environment from which tenants could make home.
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6.5 Conclusion
This chapter has examined the factors that contributed to how social and affordable tenant
participants at North-East and North-West Burbs made and maintained home, and the value
they derived from this. As with the previous chapter, I have illustrated how the making and
maintaining of home was similar between the two tenure groups and across the two housing
sites. Using the ‘freedom to’ framework, this chapter illustrated how the material and social
components of home were contextualised within tenant participants’ histories and current
social and economic conditions. I examined how the physical location and constancy of the
dwelling provided tenant participants the freedom to establish routines in the neighbourhood
to care for their health and financial needs, fulfil family roles, and care for wildlife, while
autonomy over the material dwelling provided the freedom to engage in homemaking
practices that personalised space.
I then examined social components of making and maintaining home. Autonomy and the
material suitability of home enabled tenant participants to engage in relationships of choice at
home from within their own social networks. The material constancy of home provided the
freedom to enact family-like routines with pets, while residing alongside others with similar
social and economic conditions enabled tenant participants to engage in neighbouring
practices that responded to their social and material needs. Such experiences contributed to a
sense of belonging, comfort, and connection at home.
I also illustrated how Unison engaged in governing practices to co-produce the making of
home. Frequent and informal interactions and more formalised events functioned to build
social connections with and between tenants, creating a sense of social constancy, and
fostering belonging and ownership. However, variations in Unison’s on-site presence and the
built environment meant the degree to which these approaches supported homemaking was
site dependent.
Finally, I have used this chapter to make two key theoretical contributions. First, by
extending Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) ontological security framework to community housing
I have highlighted the value of home conditions, such as constancy, privacy, and control, for
social and affordable tenure groups with different housing histories and social and economic
positions to homeowners. Experiences of home are shaped by these contexts, and this chapter
has illustrated the emotional benefit of constancy, routine, privacy, and control to those where
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this has been absent or limited in past housing arrangements, or when experiencing social and
economic marginalisation. Second, I have illustrated the relevance of Dupuis and Thorns’
home conditions to areas outside of their original scope of inquiry, including the role of
neighbourhood, neighbours, and housing governance. Neighbourhoods were an important
place to establish and maintain routines for tenant participants to care for themselves and
their families, and connections with neighbours with social and economic commonality were
a source of security and comfort. Further, I have argued that housing governance has an
important role in facilitating a constant social environment by connecting with tenants to
develop a sense of belonging, supporting tenants to make and maintain home. The next
chapter will examine factors that unmade tenant participants’ sense of home at North-West
and North-West Burbs.
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7. Unmaking home at North-East and North-West
Burbs
7.1 Introduction
Home can be experienced in contradictory ways (Mee, 2007). The previous chapter explored
how social and affordable tenant participants16 made home at North-East and North-West
Burbs. In contrast, the purpose of this chapter is to examine how homes can be, at times
simultaneously, unmade. The unmaking of home can be understood as the unintended or
deliberate, temporary or permanent disruption or damage to elements of home (Baxter &
Brickell, 2014; Cheshire et al., 2021). This chapter examines the processes underpinning the
unmaking of home experienced by social and affordable tenant participants. Emphasis is
given to Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) idea of control as a marker of home, whereby diminished
control over the social and material environment in the context of community housing
engenders experiences of ontological insecurity. To this end, the first two sections of the
chapter examine factors of home unmaking, including insufficient control of boundaries and
the social norms, aesthetics, and interactions that occur within those boundaries. Dupuis and
Thorns’ operationalisation of ontological security is extended to include neighbours and
housing governance as factors that shape home unmaking, contending that the inability for
tenant participants to negotiate a change in the conditions that unmake their homes, either
with neighbours or with the housing provider, exacerbates their sense of inadequate control
over their homes. I argue that these experiences inhibit home from being a place of safety and
belonging, and a place to derive comfort and wellbeing.
These experiences of unmaking home were starkly different between North-East and North-
West Burb. To understand this, I use the idea of defensibility to examine material and social
differences. Defensibility is understood in housing and urban planning research as
mechanisms in the material and social environment that provide the inhabitants with a level
of control and responsibility over the space, ensuring that it is safe and well maintained
(Armitage, 2011; Colquhoun, 2004; Newman, 1973; Richardson, 2018). When these
mechanisms exist, outsiders perceive the space as under the control of the tenant participants
and are deterred from intruding. I identify three key mechanisms from the social and built
16 The term ‘tenant participant’ refers to Unison tenants participating in this research, and I use the term ‘tenant’
when referring generally to non-participating tenants.
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environment to explain why intruders may perceive North-West Burb to be less defended
compared to North-East Burb: the permeability of the sites, differences in on-site housing
governance, and the type of shared space.
The third section of this chapter highlights the complexity of housing governance within
community housing. Staff accounts are used to examine governing mechanisms that respond
to tenant participant expectations and their experiences of ontological insecurity. Staff
accounts indicate inconsistencies and limitations in the utility of these mechanisms. As with
the making of home, Unison’s capacity to address the unmaking of home can be contingent
on individual place-managers and housing sites.
7.2 Material dimensions of unmaking of home
7.2.1 Intrusions of home boundaries
7.2.1.1 Private space at North-East Burb
Dupuis (2012) contends that having control over the home boundaries enables dwellers to
create and maintain privacy, providing a refuge from the disturbances and stresses of the
outside world. While Altman (1975) states that the primary territory, or home dwelling, is
within total control of the occupant, intrusion into this space at the North-East and North-
West Burb suggests that in medium-density apartment blocks total control cannot be
assumed. Living in close proximity to neighbours makes maintaining privacy and control of
the individual dwelling more difficult. Relevant to this context is Cheshire et al.’s (2021) idea
of a ‘dialectic of home unmaking’ (p. 140). Here, unmaking home does not happen in
isolation. Rather, Cheshire et al. (2021) draw attention to the relationship between
homemaking and unmaking. They explain that when the homemaking practices of one
household intrude into the homes of neighbouring households, it can unmake the neighbour’s
home. Such dialectics can be influenced by life stage and household type. At North-East
Burb, different household types were mixed throughout the medium-density apartment
building. The homemaking practices of families, such as children playing freely with toys
and children’s routines, unmade home for single-occupant, neighbouring households due to
disturbances such as noise disruption or toys going astray. For example, both Harry and
Coraline had ground floor apartments and neither had children. They each reported being
frequently disturbed by the noise from children living above them, and from objects being
thrown down to their private spaces from the balconies above such as toys, food scraps, and
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water. They discussed how these were dialectics that unmade their homes. Insufficient
control over their private boundary affected predictability and constancy in their home
environments, which are other markers of home (Dupuis and Thorns, 1998). For Harry, both
the intrusion to privacy and the irregularity of the disruptions inhibited his ability to relax.
Taken from observation fieldnotes:
Harry said he has a ground floor apartment with a tin roof next to it. People
throw things down all the time: water, rubbish, toys. It makes a loud noise and
is startling. Harry said the randomness to it is problematic. There is no pattern
of times that it is noisy, so he can never relax.
Home is maintained by a constant and predictable social and material environment (Dupuis &
Thorns, 1998). As such, both the noise disturbance and the unpredictability of the noise
inhibited Harry’s sense of privacy and control over his home and prevented him from
experiencing home comforts such as relaxation. Chapter Five identified how Harry was
grateful for the material provision of a dwelling, providing the conditions from which a sense
of ontological security could emerge. However, Harry’s sense of ontological security was
then undermined by the unpredictability from the disruptions caused by neighbours. For
Coraline, the intrusions to privacy affected her sense of safety. The lack of safety from
objects falling from the balconies above restricted the use of her home. She said, ‘That’s a
form of not feeling safe. It’s my space, or our space, because we pay the rent. But we can’t
use it.’
The intrusion of objects into the space hindered home from being a refuge and the feeling of
safety associated with this (Dupuis and Thorns, 1998). Coraline’s feeling that this presented a
threat to her safety prevented her from interacting with the material dimension of home, in
this case, her courtyard. The lack of control that Coraline had over her living environment
created a sense of ontological insecurity and so prevented her from experiencing the
wellbeing and comfort commonly derived from home (Easthope, 2014). In these dialectic
situations, where the neighbours’ homemaking practices unmade home for Coraline, the
capacity to negotiate what constitutes appropriate behaviour is key to having control over the
living environment. Mee (2007) argues that to maintain privacy in medium-density
dwellings, like North-East Burb, tenants must negotiate what is deemed appropriate
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behaviour compared to disruptive behaviour. In this context, privacy is not within the control
of the individual tenant, but is an interpersonal process of negotiation (Mee, 2007).
How appropriate behaviour is understood is relevant to the unmaking of home. Appropriate
neighbourly behaviour is difficult to define. Stokoe (2006) summarised definitions of good
neighbourly practices in the fields of environmental psychology, sociology, and cultural
geography as ‘generally friendly’, ‘helpful’, and ‘respectful of privacy’, but such terms are
fraught with different expectations. Considering Harry and Coraline’s situations at North-
East Burb, the neighbours with young children may have expected them to be helpful by
being tolerant of their child’s play, but this was perceived by Harry and Coraline as
disrespectful to their own privacy and quiet enjoyment of their homes.
Harry and Coraline’s experiences demonstrated the difficulties in negotiating different
behavioural norms. Failed negotiations compounded their sense of ontological insecurity. For
example, Harry said on one occasion he had attempted to address the issue with the mother of
a child who was ‘throwing stuff over the balcony all the time’. Harry requested the mother
stop her child from doing this. The mother responded, ‘Oh, it’s just a baby.’ Harry then
reported a hostile exchange between himself and the mother, and that the behaviour went
unchanged. Harry continued to discuss the impact that the inability to negotiate a resolution
had on his neighbourly interactions and his emotional wellbeing. He said:
I don’t say hello to anyone anymore. Because that could be the very person I’m
having an argument with that’s faceless from above. And it, [pause] I feel
mocked.
This failed negotiation compounded Harry’s home unmaking in two ways. First, the fear of
interacting with the person he had conflict with shaped his neighbouring practices. As
relationships with neighbours are a central factor in experiences of home (Cheshire et al.,
2021), avoiding this process impacts on how home is experienced and may lead to isolation.
The previous chapter illustrated how interactions with neighbours, such as the exchange of
greetings, were an important aspect of homemaking. Interacting with neighbours developed
familiarity and connection, establishing a sense of security and belonging for tenant
participants. By avoiding interactions with all neighbours, there was an additional unmaking
of home for Harry through missing out on this social process and avenue for support and
connection. Second, the failed negotiation and inability to regain control of his home
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boundary left Harry feeling ‘mocked’, emphasising the emotional impact of the conflict. The
devaluing of Harry’s homemaking preference amplified the disruptions of Dupuis and
Thorns’ (1998) markers of home as a place of control and privacy, inhibiting Harry’s
capacity to enjoy his home.
Similarly, Coraline’s sense of disempowerment over the situation was worsened by the lack
of options she perceived to negotiate a solution. Coraline thought the place-manager’s request
for her to ‘stand in the courtyard to see where the rubbish is coming from’ and to place
reminder notes in mailboxes were ineffective. Coraline also felt unable to confront the
offending neighbour for fear of retaliation. Coraline explained:
I can’t confront them [the neighbour], I can’t say, “Hey, stop it”, because I
don’t know if they’re being malicious or not. They could just encourage their
child to do it, or they could do it more if they’re in a bad mood. So, I’m trapped
there.
The lack of control over this intrusion to privacy without an effective strategy to resolve the
issue left Coraline feeling ‘trapped’—an indicator of feeling ontologically insecure. Trust in
others is necessary for ongoing experiences of ontological security (Giddens, 1991), but
Coraline’s inability to negotiate a solution caused a sense of distrust in two ways. First, she
lacked trust in the intentions of her neighbour and feared that any engagement would worsen
the situation. Second, Coraline lacked trust that the place-manager could negotiate on her
behalf due to previous ineffective solutions. Coraline’s fear was valid—Cheshire et al.’s
(2021) research found that once a behaviour is confronted, unneighbourliness can manifest in
more intentional ways. As such, Coraline could not foresee a pathway to stop the intrusion,
further aggravating the unmaking of her home. Coraline’s experience suggests that regaining
Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) notion of control as a condition of home, whereby the dweller
determines how their space is used, in medium-density community housing requires trust in
either your neighbours or housing governance. When this trust is absent, home continues to
be unmade by both the material disruption and the perceived inability to have it stopped. The
combination of distrust and unsuccessful negotiations can result in repeated or ongoing
diminished control over private space, thereby unmaking home.
This lack of control needs to be placed within the context of the built environment and the
associated neighbouring norms. For example, the boundaries of standalone houses and
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potential intrusions of those boundaries differ to those of medium- to high-density living. In
medium- to high-density dwellings, increased proximity impacts on the ability to maintain
privacy and the subjectivity of neighbourly norms is more pronounced, especially in
situations of social mix, such as life stage and household types. Cheshire and Bulgar (2016)
argue social housing creates the conditions for particular neighbouring styles that can lead to
conflict. They draw attention to how the built environment of social housing—higher density
levels, poorer building quality, and less consideration for privacy in planning—contributes to
increased conflict experienced between social housing neighbours compared to other tenure
types. For example, a child playing with toys may disturb some neighbours and not disturb
others. But, according to Cheshire and Bulgar (2016), the likelihood of being disrupted by
neighbours, whether by children playing or something else, is heightened in social housing.
Coraline and Harry’s examples show how, in community housing, this disruption to home is
exacerbated by being unable to negotiate different behavioural norms.
7.2.1.2 Shared space at North-West Burb
Applying Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) framework to medium-density community housing
means considering the degree of control tenants have over the shared space, perceived as an
extension of home. As with the private spaces, this includes protection from outside threats
and stressors (Dupuis & Thorns, 1998). Somerville (1997) contends that privacy in the home
involves the power to exclude. The power to exclude is essential to having autonomy over the
aesthetics and activities that take place within the home. Somerville’s discussion on privacy
is situated within the dweller’s own dwelling. Tenant participant experiences at North-West
Burb draw attention to the nuances of this in community housing, where homes were unmade
by the inability to exclude and maintain privacy within the shared space. Mee (2007) states
that in medium-density buildings shared spaces and boundaries are always beyond the
individual tenant’s control, and the tenant participant accounts collected here highlight how
this diminished control led to experiencing ontological insecurity. Having limited or no
control over the site boundary caused social unpredictability from knowing that non-residents
could easily enter the housing site.
As examined in Chapter Two, leaving family violence is cause for priority access to social
housing (Housing Vic, 2024). In these instances, establishing safe housing and control over
boundaries is especially important because the threat of danger and the stress associated with
leaving is most acute in the initial period post-move (O’Campo et al., 2016). Monika moved
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into North-West Burb with her son after leaving family violence. As previously discussed in
Chapter Five, Monika identified how a sense of security emerged from having ongoing
tenure. She also reflected on her first impressions of the security at North-West Burb when
she moved into her property:
I was so happy when I moved in here, like there’s security, there’s cameras, I’m
a single parent, I’m in a new state, I’ve just left domestic violence, there’s
cameras, there’s these big heavy doors, there’s gates. [But] You quickly learn
that if someone wants to get in here, they can.
Monika realised that her initial sense of security from the material characteristics of North-
West Burb was false because in actuality the built environment failed to exclude outsiders.
This lack of boundary maintenance created insecurity. The inability to exclude outsiders from
the housing site undermined the initial sense of safety that Monika felt, unmaking her home.
Tenant participants said visitors would intrude into the housing site by jumping the fence and
walls or damaging the security doors to enter. For example, Dorothy reported that non-
residents had easy access to the housing site, emphasising how insecure North-West Burb
was:
I just sit here, and watch people jump over the gate, and go over the wall and
walk in here. Jump over the wall and walk in. Some get a chair and jump over
the wall to get out. That I don’t understand. This is not a secure place. This is
far from secure. And I’m sitting there, and they just stare at me.
Dorothy noted the confidence with which the intruders entered the housing site, showing no
regard that a resident was witnessing them invade her home. Dorothy’s sense of insecurity
was derived from both the presence of the intruders and from the assuredness with which
they intruded. Dorothy and Monika’s experiences were consistent with Mee’s research
(2007), which also found that tenants’ inability to control the boundaries of their housing site
contributed to feelings of insecurity. Lack of control over the boundaries inhibited
predictability in the social environment that Dupuis and Thorns (1998) identify as a marker of
home, limiting the haven-like qualities of home. The witnessing of intrusions unmade
Dorothy’s home, while for Monika, the knowledge of how easy it was for people to intrude
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unmade hers. The knowledge of the ineffective security and permeability of the home
boundary contributed to feeling ontologically insecure.
The notion of defensibility can be used to examine how the permeability and level of
through-movement between the housing sites and neighbourhood can influence opportunities
for intrusions. Armitage’s (2011) research in the United Kingdom found that sites with high
connectivity between the site and broader neighbourhood increased the risk of anti-social
behaviour and crime. While gates, fences, and walls provide clear markings between
territories of defended and undefended spaces (Colquhoun, 2004), Armitage (2011) found
that gated communities do not reduce crime. Rather, gates can entice intruders and are easily
scaled by using things such as signs, utility boxes, and other moveable objects nearby.
Connectivity and permeability were high at North-West Burb. There were four points of
entry: two at the front of the building and two at the rear. However, as detailed in this
chapter, visitors were also able to enter the site by climbing the walls. In contrast, intrusions
into the housing site were not reported at North-East Burb, which with a single, secured entry
point at the front of the building did not have connectivity or through-movement with the
wider neighbourhood. As such, opportunities for non-residents to enter the housing site were
limited to being granted access by tenants or staff. These material differences help to explain
why the tenant participants at North-East Burb did not report the same intrusions into the
shared space as at North-West Burb.
7.2.2 Material disorder at North-West Burb
Dupuis and Thorns (1998) argue that having control over the home environment means
having control over the presentation of the dwelling. Other housing and home scholarship
emphasises the importance of the built environment on emotional wellbeing, whereby
wellbeing is derived from exercising control over the material condition and by having an
aesthetic that is reflective of self (Clapham, 2010; Dupuis, 2012; Easthope, 2014). Homes
that are expressions of the dweller’s personality and values can elicit pride and self-esteem
(Clapham, 2010; Dupuis, 2012). For example, Chapter Six examined how personalising
space was associated with pride and comfort. While Dupuis and Thorns applied control as a
marker of home to the private dwelling, experiences of home unmaking caused by material
disorder at North-West Burb illustrate that these ideas also apply to shared spaces. The
material disorder in the shared space unmade home by conflicting with tenant participant
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identities, highlighting a contention in community housing—that the shared space was
considered an extension of the tenant participants’ home, yet its condition was out of their
control.
Tenant participants took numerous photos to illustrate the material disorder. For example,
Adrian took Photo 7.1 of rubbish gathering in the driveway to the housing site’s car park to
illustrate how the condition of North-West Burb contrasted with his perception of self.
Photo 7.1– Rubbish gathering in the driveway at North-West Burb
Adrian said that the material condition of a dwelling reflects a person’s emotional state,
noting that when his apartment was clean, he was happier. He said:
I’m generally a clean person. If I look at my house and I see it’s untidy, that’s
the state of my mind. Right? Clean it up. And if I maintain a clean house, I know
that I’m happier. And I try to use that rule here. When you’ve got rubbish and
tyres, and people parking their cars wherever they like, and rubbish. This is the
state of this place.
Adrian’s experience illustrates the intersection of two of Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) home
markers—control over the home environment and home as a place of identity construction.
Lack of control over the presentation of the shared space led to the shared space conflicting
with Adrian’s sense of self. An inability to achieve these markers impacted on his wellbeing.
Adrian’s association between his wellbeing and cleanliness is congruent with other social
housing research. For example, Houle et al. (2018) and Hayward et al. (2015) also found
social housing tenants associated wellbeing with an aesthetically pleasing and well-
maintained housing site. Adrian drew parallels between this and his perception of self. Adrian
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called himself a ‘clean person’, so the uncleanliness and lack of care for the shared space
conflicted with this self-perception. This reinforced the significance of the shared space as an
extension of Adrian’s home, and how its poor condition unmade this.
Dorothy took Photo 7.2 of broken crockery on a picnic table to show how the material
disorder in the shared space permeated into her private dwelling, blurring the home
boundaries.
Photo 7.2 – Broken crockery on the shared picnic table at North-West Burb
Dorothy discussed how the aesthetic of having rubbish in the shared space unmade home
within her private dwelling. She said although she did not use the outdoor table, she could see
it from her home when looking out the window or using her own patio. Dorothy said, ‘I’m
looking at it now. So, I’m always looking at it.’
Dorothy’s experience echoes Massey’s (1992) notion that home is influenced by the social
and material forms that stretch beyond the dwelling. The unmaking of home that occurred in
the shared space blurred into the unmaking of home in the private dwelling. This blurred
boundary illustrated how a lack of control over the condition of the shared space can also
equate to a lack of control over elements of the private space. With the shared space seeping
into the private, Dorothy was constantly reminded of how the space conflicted with her
preference, and so the unmaking of home was continuous. Dorothy discussed the impact that
this material disorder had on her emotional state. She said that ‘it depresses me’ and ‘it makes
me sad’. Dorothy’s response was consistent with other social housing research that found that
poor maintenance of shared spaces inhibits tenants’ pride and self-esteem (Houle et al.,
2018). Dorothy’s connection between material and emotional disorder emphasised the need
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for home to be a place of self-expression that aligns with the dweller’s values. The absence of
deriving pride and self-esteem from home is not neutrality. Rather, Dorothy’s experience
highlights how this unmaking of home can cause emotional distress.
7.2.3 Unmet expectations: Responses to material disorder at North-West Burb
Tenant participant experiences draw attention to the role of housing governance in how home
is experienced in community housing. The unmaking of home from the material disorder at
North-West Burb was exacerbated by the expectation that Unison was responsible for, but
was failing to address, the issues. Tenant participants’ lack of control over the aesthetics and
condition of the shared space meant they required Unison to safeguard this on their behalf.
This emphasises the necessity of housing governance in community housing to address the
unmaking of home. Colquhoun’s (2004) work on defensible space explains how this can
occur. He argues that for space to be perceived as defended, it needs to be maintained and
any disruption to maintenance quickly responded to. To this end, responses need to be
continuous and immediate, such as removing graffiti quickly or efficiently repairing damaged
property to match the original design. Colquhoun (2004) contends that potential offenders are
encouraged when no one is shown to be taking responsibility for shared space, allowing the
offenders to assume control instead. Tenant participant accounts suggested that the lack of
perceived responsibility enabled other tenants and their visitors to assume control of the
shared space. While tenant participants acknowledged it was other tenants and their visitors
that were causing the material disorder, they believed the onus was on Unison to correct this.
Unison’s failure to do so exacerbated the tenant participants’ unmaking of home. Just as
housing providers can be co-producers of ontological security (Plage et al., 2023), as argued
in the previous two chapters, so too they can contribute to ontological insecurity. In this case,
rather than Unison proactively producing ontological insecurity, it was tenant participants’
unmet expectation of Unison taking responsibility for the material condition that contributed
to tenant participants’ experiences of ontological insecurity.
Monika took Photo 7.3 to discuss the discarded mattresses in the shared space.
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Photo 7.3 – The shared space at North-West Burb with a discarded mattress in the
background
Monika acknowledged it was tenants who incorrectly disposed of the mattresses, but that it
was Unison that was ultimately responsible for ensuring that space is safe and clear of
rubbish. She said:
It just doesn’t seem good enough. And I mean, if there’s rubbish on the property,
yeah, it’s the tenant’s fault. But, if it sits there for that long, then it becomes the
responsibility of Unison.
Monika recognised that the actions of other tenants caused the material disruption to the
shared space but stated that the onus was on Unison to fix this and restore tenants’ capacity to
use the shared spaces. The contention surrounding responsibility is a common experience at
housing sites such as North-West Burb. Other research has also found that while tenants
acknowledge that other tenants may cause uncleanliness on site, there is the perception that
inaction or inadequate responses from housing organisations cause or perpetuate the issue
(Hayward et al., 2015; Houle et al., 2018). Dorothy illustrated the emotional impact of
inaction by those she deemed responsible. Dorothy attributed the unmaking of her home and
associated emotional response to Unison’s failure to keep the shared space in a home-like
state. She said:
Sometimes it makes me feel, sort of, in a sense worthlessness, because I pay my
rent and you can’t tidy up? There’s a few other things around here like that. It’s
like we’re not worth cleaning up for.
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Social organisation linked to ontological security is relevant here. A predictable social world
engenders confidence in the social order and one’s place within this order (Hiscock et al.,
2002). Dorothy expressed a sense of confusion over the social order—she had maintained her
contractual agreement by paying her rent but despite this, Unison had not fulfilled what
Dorothy perceived as their responsibility to then maintain the shared space. This affected
Dorothy’s self-esteem; the confusion of her place in the social order and the feeling that her
place was lower than a rent-paying tenant’s should be gave rise to a sense of worthlessness.
Dorothy and Monika’s experiences highlight the impact that housing governance can have on
tenants, their emotional wellbeing, and their perceptions of self in social contexts. Their
unmet expectations, whether reasonable or not, exacerbated a feeling of loss of control in the
home environment, causing a sense of ontological insecurity. Further, this illustrates tenants’
reliance on housing governance to facilitate shared spaces that foster rather than inhibit
ontological security.
Tenant participants at North-East Burb did not have the same unmet expectations of Unison
or the same problems with site condition. Governing differences between the two sites helps
to explain this difference. The previous chapter argued that the on-site presence of place-
managers supported their contribution to making home compared to those sites where place-
managers were less visible. Being on site enabled better connections with tenants and
increased tenants’ sense of ownership over their housing site. On-site presence from housing
governance is also necessary to prevent the unmaking of home. Colquhoun (2004) contends
that having on-site social housing management is one method for space to be perceived as
defended. In this sense, defending space can function as a mechanism for co-producing
ontological security. Throughout the observation phase of my fieldwork, I observed that the
office at North-East Burb was always staffed with at least two people, often more. The office
was open four days a week, and tenants had direct access from the street. Tenants would
often visit without an appointment. If their place-manager was absent, another staff member
would greet them. I also observed regular cleaning of the entrance and foyer area. In contrast,
the office at North-West Burb was open two days a week and was only accessible through the
locked community room. During my time at North-West Burb, two place-managers left and
Unison was in the process of recruiting another when the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions
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started .17 Staff referred to this as the ‘curse of North-West Burb’, suggesting that high staff
turnover had been an ongoing issue. I did not observe tenants dropping into the office as they
did at North-East Burb. The effects of staff turnover and perceived inaccessibility were
reflected in tenant participant discussions. For example, Dorothy reported that ‘Unison come
and go’. Likewise, Monika advised that since the previous place-manager had left, she no
longer had a staff contact number, and instead would call maintenance in the hopes of getting
in contact with someone. She said:
I don’t even have a contact for a place-manager since [name] left. And [name]
left last year. If I want to talk to someone from Unison, I have to call
maintenance and get a number from them.
In addition to place-managers spending less time on the housing site, Monika identified
challenges in reporting site issues to the relevant staff. While many of the physical
characteristics of North-West Burb were permanent, characteristics such as on-site presence
and more regular cleaning could address the ambiguity surrounding the ownership of the
shared space, and in turn, progress towards meeting tenant participant expectations of
housing governance. To this end, by housing governance exercising control over the shared
space when tenants were unable do so themselves, the conditions needed for achieving and
maintaining a sense of ontological security from the material environment could be
facilitated.
7.3. Social dimensions unmaking of home
7.3.1 Social disorder by visitors at North-West Burb
Disruption caused by the presence and behaviours of tenants’ visitors, rather than by the
tenants themselves, is a common experience in social housing (Jacobs & Arthurson, 2003;
Jones et al., 2014). This commonality warrants examining the specificities of how neighbours
and their visitors can undermine Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) markers of home. While visitors
are not always wanted or invited by the visited tenant (Jones et al., 2014), when they engage
in disruptive behaviours, visitors can threaten other tenants’ sense of ontological security;
lack of individual control over housing boundaries and who can enter the housing site,
17 As outlined in Chapter Four, COVID-19 restrictions were introduced to Melbourne in March 2020. Except for
essential services, the restrictions required residents of Melbourne to work from home and limited recreation
time outside of the home to 1–2 hours per day and the distance residents could travel from their homes to 5 km.
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including intimate partners, sex workers’ clientele, and drug dealers, threaten tenants’ sense
of control and safety (Mee, 2007; Wilson, 2007). This was illustrated in the previous section,
where tenant participants’ inability to control the boundary of North-West Burb unmade
home. In many cases, the degree to which a person perceives a behaviour as disruptive is
subjective (Jacobs & Arthurson, 2003). As explored previously, children’s noise and toys in a
courtyard may or may not have been problematic depending on the affected person’s values
and construction of what was acceptable behaviour. However, at North-West Burb, tenant
participants indicated that visitors to the housing site were engaging in more extreme, and at
times criminal, forms of disruptive behaviour.
The built environment at North-West Burb lent itself to disruptive behaviours not reported at
North-East Burb. Social housing research has found that the design features like those at
North-West Burb, such as open-air corridors, stairwells, and elevators in medium- to high-
density apartment blocks, can be used for disruptive and illicit behaviour (Baxter, 2017;
Hicks, 2020). In Baxter’s (2017) research it was found that while the spaces were
infrequently used for disruptive behaviours, the fear of potential criminal incidents still left
tenants feeling unsettled. A key component of feeling ontologically secure is having trust in
the constancy and predictability of the social environment (Giddens, 1991; Dupuis & Thorns,
1998). Therefore, following from Baxter’s example, the unpredictability in the social
environment contributed to a sense of ontological insecurity. Tenant participants at North-
West Burb reported this. Shared spaces were sites of social disorder and there was ongoing
fear that this would be repeated. One or two incidents were enough to make tenants feel
unsafe and contribute to the unmaking of home. Lack of control and unpredictability
underpinned this. While visitors were not always present, knowing visitors could easily
access the housing site, and the lack of control over the norms of behaviour within the shared
space, meant the feeling of unsafety was ever-present for tenant participants. For example,
Fazia’s husband was assaulted by a person visiting North-West Burb. Fazia said:
My husband was punched by somebody here, and then there was blood. He was
from outside. He used to come to second floor too. He asked my husband for a
smoke, and then my husband told him, “I don’t have any”, and then he punched
him.
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Fazia and her husband told Unison about this, who advised them to call the police. While
police attended, this was ineffective in re-establishing a sense of ontological security for
Fazia, who still described the housing site as ‘not safe’. This seemingly unprovoked and
erratic response to being denied a cigarette encapsulated the unpredictability of the social
space and the risk to tenant safety. The regular frequency of the perpetrator visiting the site
added to that unpredictability and ongoing risk to safety and potential for such assaults to be
repeated.
Social disorder at North-West Burb extended to how visitors were using the shared space.
Adrian used Photo 7.5 to show a damaged laundry door, an ineffective sign, and to discuss
the way visitors had taken social ownership of the communal laundry.
Photo 7.5 – The laundry door at North-West Burb, showing a sign and property damage
Easy access to the housing site, and having a communal space with no obvious governance
left Adrian perceiving the laundry as undefended and therefore available for visitors to
determine the laundry’s use. The unmaking of Adrian’s home was compounded by both the
absence of tenant control over their shared amenities and by how visitors had instead
acquired this control. Adrian said visitors were expressing their control by using the laundry
‘for their own purposes’, describing property damage, sleeping, drug use, and sex as some of
these alternative purposes. Adrian continued to discuss how this signified a lack of security
and the impact this had on those who he perceived to be more vulnerable tenants. He said:
It doesn’t matter what signs you put up, doesn’t matter that it’s a laundry. It just
shows the lack of security around here. And unfortunately, it’s not just myself,
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there are single females here, middle-aged, they can’t take care of themselves
like I can. They just lock their door or stay inside, and that’s no way to live.
Such use of communal space threatens ontological security; the threat to safety and lack of
control over how the space is used and its condition prevents or limits access to communal
but necessary space (Mifflin & Wilton, 2005). Adrian suggested that not only did this
behaviour prevent access to the laundry, but that middle-aged female tenants were prevented
from participating more fully in life because they felt unsafe. While the laundry was
identified as a place where home was unmade, the impact of this stretched beyond this
location. Other tenants restricting themselves to their private dwellings illustrated how
dispossession and associated insecurity felt by tenants pervaded beyond the laundry’s
material boundary into the rest of the shared space.
Contributing to the social unmaking of home was concern for child safety. Home is a
significant part of child-rearing; the decisions a parent makes about the home environment
communicate family and social norms to the child (Bartlett, 1997). Having control and choice
over their home environment, such as ensuring home is safe and secure and is a place that
represents the parent’s values, supports parents to raise their children in line with values and
beliefs as members of a larger society (Bartlett, 1997). In this sense, home as a site where
people feel most in control of their lives (Dupuis & Thorns, 1998) includes control over how
one can parent and the environment that parents create for their children. When parents have
little control over the material and social elements of home, this control is threatened
(Bartlett, 1997). Accounts from North-West Burb suggested parents’ control over what their
children were exposed to was restricted, with both Fazia and Monika providing examples of
concerning interactions between their children and adult visitors.
For example, Fazia shared that her 13-year-old son was approached by a male visitor who
inquired about his age. Fazia described the situation:
It was a little bit scary. I don’t think he lived here but I saw him many times. He
comes in the building to go to level 2, but I don’t know to who. There’s too
many, too many men. Especially that man, when I saw him, he gets inside using
a stick.
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The intentions of the visitor enquiring about Fazia’s son’s age were unknown, but both Fazia
and her son were disturbed by this interaction and the man’s regular presence on site.
Monika, likewise, shared her experience of a visitor approaching her, asking for drugs while
in the presence of her six-year-old son. Monika said:
There are people coming up to me, visitors of people that live here, or clients of
the drug dealers that are in the building, coming up to me with money in their
hand asking me if I have anything while my son is there.
Mee (2007) found that tenants in social housing often experience ontological security in
contradictory ways. Monika and Fazia’s situations were an example of this. Chapter Five
illustrated how the role of housing was pertinent to Monika’s parenting. She identified that
providing a stable, secure home for her son was one of the most significant benefits of living
in North-West Burb. Similarly, Chapter Six showed how the location of North-West Burb
enabled Fazia to build routines in the neighbourhood that supported family life. However, the
conduct of visitors at North-West Burb also presented a risk to the provision of security and
the tenant participants’ ability to control the environment that their children were living in.
Both Fazia and Monika’s accounts suggested that unsafe social interactions were a regular
occurrence at North-West Burb. Monika’s story suggested that witnessing drug dealing was a
recurring event, indicating that exposing children to such illicit behaviour was part of the
social norms at the housing site. Fazia said, ‘There’s … too many men’, indicating this was
not an isolated incident, and that there were men regularly visiting North-West Burb who
were a perceived risk to the children. These stories illustrated the lack of control within the
shared space; tenant participants were unable to control who had access to the housing site
and were unable to control the social interactions the visitors initiated once inside. Just as
visitors can create social unpredictability, as illustrated above, the regular presence of visitors
perceived to be a risk can also create a sense of predictability that the social environment is
unsafe. For Fazia, this predictability made home ‘scary’ and unable to meet the conditions
that make home a refuge from external threats (Dupuis & Thorns, 1998). For Monika, the
regular illicit conduct of visitors exposed her son to social norms that did not align with her
own values, preventing home from being a place reflecting her identity (Dupuis & Thorns,
1998). The inability to meet these markers of home instead caused an ongoing sense of
ontological insecurity.
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7.3.2 Racism
Tenant participants identified that racism unmade home at North-West Burb. Dupuis and
Thorns (1998) contend that identity is constructed and expressed at home by the aesthetics of
the dwelling and the status attached to home ownership. Tenant participant experiences at
North-West Burb suggested that behaviours and values of neighbours can also impact on
one’s identity construction and sense of belonging to home. Experiences of racism, for
example, create ontological insecurity by challenging trust and identity, and by creating a
sense of non-belonging (Hickey, 2016; Noble, 2005). Racism challenges the recognition of
self within social spaces and shapes choices in using such spaces and engaging in
relationships (Hickey, 2016). This is an indication of the power that others have in
influencing experiences of ‘being’, and through that a sense of belonging (Noble, 2005).
Hickey’s (2016) research on Aboriginal Australians and their experiences of racism found
that ontological security is challenged most when the perpetrator of racial vilification is
within the vilified person’s immediate social circle. This can be applied to the home
environment, where neighbours are part of everyday life by nature of proximity. Neighbours’
actions within private and shared spaces impact how others experience home and their
feelings of belonging within those spaces, particularly within medium- to high-density living.
Dorothy, who was Anglo-Australian, provided an example of how the racism expressed by
her neighbours unmade home. Dorothy reported that another tenant made comments in the
shared space such as ‘the Sudanese disease’, ‘you fucking black bastards’, and ‘the n word’.
Dorothy said that ‘the loud people, the people you know of. They’re racists’, suggesting that
it was a minority of people at North-West Burb that engaged in overt expressions of racism.
Dorothy also observed that those people gained ‘respect’ for this on the housing site,
suggesting that these prejudiced views were more widespread, even if not explicitly
articulated. Dorothy expressed the social and emotional impact that this racism had on her
experience of home. She said she had discontinued friendships with neighbours after
discovering they were ‘little bigots’. Dorothy reported this was a central reason for avoiding
interactions with her neighbours and that now she ‘walks away. It’s just [pause] it can be
unsettling to be around’. Although Dorothy was not the subject of the racial slurs, such views
conflicted with her own values, causing her to de-identify with the social space. Dorothy
limited interactions with her neighbours and reported on the discomfort she felt by living near
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people who expressed such views, with this contributing to a sense of non-belonging and
unease at home.
Emir provided an example of how tenants were reliant on housing governance to rectify
experiences of ontological insecurity caused by racism. Emir experienced direct racial
vilification while in the shared space. For example, he reported being called ‘a fucking wog’
by another tenant while using the lift. However, as with the material unmaking of home, this
was exacerbated by Emir’s unmet expectation that Unison would alleviate this racism. The
following was taken from observation fieldnotes:
Emir said he was doing his laundry and a male tenant came in asking if Emir
was Muslim, and saying he hates Muslims and was speaking abusively to Emir.
Emir said he went and got [the place-manager] to come and listen at the door.
She heard what the man was saying. Then [the place-manager] came inside,
and the man stopped. She left and he [the other tenant] continued.
Emir proactively sought support from the place-manager in this situation, but from Emir’s
account, this support was not provided in any enduring sense. The place-manager attended
the site of the incident, but Emir continued to be subjected to racial vilification after she left.
Racism creates a sense of non-belonging and de-identification with space and hampers the
trust relationships that are necessary for ontological security (Hickey, 2016; Noble, 2005).
This was exacerbated for Emir by his unsuccessful attempts to have racism addressed by
Unison, highlighting his lack of control over the social space. Emir’s view that Unison’s
response to the racism he experiences was inadequate meant Unison was a co-producer in
Emir’s sense of ontological insecurity. This further strengthens the necessity to consider how
housing governance can shape Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) markers of home, and equally, the
unmaking of home. While there were no reports of racism at North-East Burb at the time of
data collection, Harry also indicated that this used to be an issue, saying that in previous years
there was ‘a lot more racism, there were lots of rednecks’18 but they had since moved out.
Harry’s account suggested that it was the departure of those tenants that had reduced or
removed the presence of racism at North-East Burb, rather than a governing or community
response to their behaviour. That is, the reduction or removal of racism was by chance rather
18 The term ‘redneck’ is a colloquial term for white people who express racist views (Al-Natour, 2010).
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than intention. Given the impact of racism experienced by other tenants on their sense of
home, tenant mobility cannot be relied on to address the issue.
7.4 Governing dimensions of unmaking home
7.4.1 Tenancy allocations
While tenants can rarely choose their neighbours, tenant participants at North-West Burb
believed that Unison, as the landlord, controlled this. Tenant participants expected Unison to
be more selective in filling vacancies by, for example, reference-checking potential tenants.
Emir said, ‘[t]hey are putting people in without asking any questions. Where you been
before?’ Landlords checking rental histories is standard procedure in the private rental
market, but this differs in community housing and between different CHOs. Over the last
decade, state requirements regarding tenancy allocations by CHOs in Victoria have been a
contentious and changing issue. On the one hand, CHOs have argued for the necessity to
house mostly people with fewer support needs and higher incomes, such as those receiving
age pension compared to those receiving lower incomes such as unemployment benefits, for
financial viability and sustainability (CHFV, 2015). However, this approach has limited
access to housing for those considered in greatest need, raising questions about fairness and
equity (CHFV, 2015). Allocation policies have varied across the sector. Some CHOs have
employed an ‘opt-in’ approach to meeting somewhat ambiguous quotas, such as up to 50% of
available vacancies allocated from the priority access registrar, while others have had to meet
minimum quotas, dependent on state funding or for properties that have been transferred from
public to community housing (CHFV, 2015). While this has been an ambiguous and
changing policy space, at the time of my data collection Unison’s allocations policy (see
Appendix K) stated they were required to allocate 75% of targeted social housing to those
with priority access on the Victorian Housing Registrar (VHR), in line with the VHR
allocations framework. Those eligible for priority access are people who more urgently
require social housing than the general list, including people who are homeless and receiving
support, who are escaping or have escaped family violence, who have a disability or
significant support needs, or who need to move for health reasons (Housing Vic, 2024).
Indeed, executive staff emphasised the complexity of their tenant group in comparison to
other CHOs. Executive 3 explained:
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We house the people with the most complex needs, the people with a history of
homelessness, the people who may not have had a tenancy in the past that bring
in additional challenges. Some other housing agencies may house social tenants
that don’t have that same challenging profile.
Unison’s commitment to house those in greatest need conflicted with the expectations
expressed by tenant participants. Unison emphasised that they allocated tenancies to people
without a tenancy record while tenant participants expected Unison to ensure their neighbours
had sound tenancy histories. This illustrates the dialectics in governing the making and
unmaking of home, whereby the homemaking practices of one household can, in turn,
unmake the home of another household (Cheshire et al., 2021). Indeed, making home is not
uniform. In community housing, where tenants share underlying social and economic
disadvantage, their housing and support needs are diverse. Therefore, there are limitations on
the extent to which CHOs can be co-producers of ontological security for all tenants.
Unison’s commitment to house most of their tenancies from the priority access list ensured
that those in greatest need had the chance to establish ontological security. However, this
increased the likelihood of having concentrations of people with complex support needs
within a housing site, which, if left without the required support, might result in the unmaking
of homes for other tenants. Here, the support provided to tenants from priority access was a
key mechanism in, amongst other things, ensuring a safe and predictable social and material
environment. However, Unison was reliant on local external service providers (LESPs) to
deliver this support. Executive 1 explained this reliance, saying that ‘since the late 90s
government decided that you couldn’t be both [housing provider and support service
provider], so they separated housing and support’. While Executive 1 observed a gradual
diminishing of this separation in the sector, Executive 2 stated that Unison ‘don’t have an
appetite for support. We would rather do housing provision and do it well’.
Unison’s allocations policy stated there was a ‘memorandum of understanding’ with various
LESPs, where LESPs can fill vacancies with those they support with priority access. As noted
in Chapter Six, in return LESPs were required to provide social support to those tenants.
Unison viewed LESPs to be best placed to provide the support to priority access tenants
because Unison’s place-managers, while having tenancy management backgrounds, ‘don’t
have the training or the understanding of the support model’ (Executive 1). This approach is
endorsed across the sector—partnering with support organisations is considered a holistic and
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person-centred approach that leads to tenants with complex support needs being better
supported (Flanagan et al., 2019). As a result, Unison was reliant on the expertise of the
LESPs to provide the required support to their most complex tenants. Nomination rights are a
common arrangement in the community housing sector, but responsibilities and formalities
vary, dependent on individual partnerships (CHFV, 2015; Flanagan et al., 2019). Executive
staff identified how variations in these partnerships shaped the amount of control Unison had
over the quality of support provided to tenants, which in turn influenced the behavioural
impact on other tenants’ experiences of home. Just as tenant participants had diminished
control over the social and material environment, thereby resulting in the unmaking their
home, housing governance also had limitations in controlling the mechanisms that could
facilitate the home environment. Executive 1 said that in some buildings, Unison was ‘locked
in with the support, so we got zero control’. Executive 3 elaborated:
Our influence is limited in some cases by the support agency being nominated
by government agreements. When we establish that relationship directly with
the support agency, we’ve got a lot more control.
Executive 1 explained how they utilise this control to improve the quality of support:
If [LESPs] aren’t providing support in a building, I’ll just move someone else
in and bypass [them]. So, the only power we have is that we’ve got the housing
and if you’re a homeless support agency I would have thought that housing was
the holy grail.
This suggested that Unison’s control over the quality of support that can contribute to the
making or unmaking of tenant homes was inconsistent across their properties. Some housing
sites had mechanisms within the partnership arrangements to better ensure the conditions of
the home, but at other sites this was absent. Even in cases where Unison was able to use their
tenancy vacancies as leverage to ensure tenants were adequately supported, executive
accounts suggested options for quality support were sparse. Executive 1 said, ‘It’s just my
sheer frustration at the quality of support that’s available.’ This is another example of how
external factors, in this case a sector shortage of the required support, influenced Unison’s
capacity as co-producers of ontological security. Flanagan et al.’s (2019) research on social
housing provides insight into why housing providers feel frustrated with the quality of
support. Timeframes on specialist support are determined by program funding rather than
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support needs, resulting in social housing tenants only receiving time-limited support when
an ongoing, needs-based approach would better support them. Parsell et al.’s (2022)
evaluation on an integrated support model emphasises the importance of relationships—
tenant problems were often relational, and tenants valued support for how it addressed the
symptoms of loneliness, while a lack of response to loneliness would often lead to behaviours
or coping strategies that caused tenant problems. Yet, as Flanagan et al. (2019) note, funding
limitations, in addition to high staff turnover and burnout, affect the tenant-staff relationship,
hindering continuity and early detection of issues that risk the tenancy. As shown at North-
West Burb, this can have a severe impact on other tenants and their experiences of
ontological insecurity. While tenancy allocations were a mechanism to better ensure the
social and material environment at housing sites, inconsistent influence over the quality of
support shaped Unison’s capacity to address, or not address, the unmaking of home.
7.4.2 Tenant evictions
The second mechanism that tenant participants expected Unison to use to restore the social
and material dimensions of home was evictions. For example, in response to those causing
property damage and social disruption, Adrian said Unison should ‘get them out of here’.
Yet, both tenant participants and place-managers identified barriers in activating this
mechanism, specifically, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) process.
To this end, VCAT’s evidence requirements heightened tenant participants’ sense of
ontological insecurity and drew attention to place-managers’ inconsistent and restricted
control over governing housing sites. The dialectics of homemaking and unmaking, where the
homemaking practices of one household can unmake the home of another household
(Cheshire et al., 2021), can explain why this is a challenging process. Governing mechanisms
to address disruptive behaviour through systems like VCAT, such as compliance orders that
are made to modify behaviour or possession orders to evict tenants, invariably unmake the
home or result in displacement of the tenant engaging in disruptive behaviour. VCAT orders
comply with the dominant yet subjective social norms for appropriate neighbourly conduct,
but as will be shown, before being made such orders require evidence that could have a
financial, social, or emotional impact on the home life of a tenant. This is a nuanced dialectic
that falls on VCAT to balance, and so they require considerable evidence from the housing
provider (Jacobs & Arthurson, 2003; Jones et al., 2014). Part of this evidence includes other
tenants acting as witnesses that results in them being identified (Jacobs & Arthurson, 2003).
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Monika, from North-West Burb drew attention to the unsafe situation this placed her in. She
said:
The response many times is, “Oh well, if you want to take them to VCAT, we
need someone that is providing this evidence, which means you’ll be identified.”
And I’m like, “Okay, that’s not great for me, you guys get to leave and go home,
but I have to deal with these people.”
Having to return to the housing site after providing evidence against a neighbour when there
was a lack of oversight or governance, especially during out-of-office hours, placed Monika
in an unsafe position. Monika’s fear is echoed in other social housing research that has also
found tenants are fearful of retribution if they act as a witness against another tenant at a
tenancy tribunal hearing (Arthurson & Jacobs, 2006; Flint, 2002; Jacobs & Arthurson, 2003).
This illustrates how this process can exacerbate the unmaking of home in community
housing. As she was already feeling unsafe, Monika’s sense of ontological insecurity would
be heightened if she was identified through giving evidence to VCAT, fearing she would then
also become the target of assault.
Just as Dupuis and Thorns (1998) contend a sense of control is necessary for a dweller to
make home, a sense of control is also necessary for housing governance to facilitate home-
like conditions. Yet, some place-manager accounts suggested their perception of control over
the social conditions of housing sites was limited, hindering their capacity to facilitate a safe
and predictable social environment. Place-managers wanted more control, in line with the
expectations expressed by tenant participants, but said that the VCAT process restricted this.
Place-manager 4, whose property portfolio included North-West Burb, provided further
insight into how VCAT requirements perpetuated experiences of ontological insecurity for
some tenants. Disruptive behaviour, including assault, not only required neighbours to
provide evidence, but the behaviour needed to be persistent. Place-manager 4 said:
A tenant bashed another tenant. But when you take the case to VCAT, you have
to prove that this is ongoing. It’s really dangerous already, you don’t want it to
happen another time. But VCAT say no, this has to be ongoing to grant you a
possession order, or a compliance order. It’s really tough already, you can’t
have any witnesses. Because other tenants are scared to be a witness. So, we
can’t really do anything or prove that it’s ongoing.
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Place-manager 4 noted the danger associated with a singular assault but cited that the VCAT
requirement that this must be ongoing placed tenants at continued risk and reinforced the
perspective of Monika and social housing research (Arthurson & Jacobs, 2006; Flint, 2002;
Jacobs & Arthurson, 2003) that tenants are fearful of providing this evidence. Place-manager
11 also felt restricted in their capacity to address the unmaking of home in relation to noise
disruptions, saying:
If you’ve breached someone for noise, they’ve got two weeks to rectify it. So,
they can have a party for 13 days, stop on the 14th day, there’s nothing you can
do.
[Group agrees]
As with assaults, place-managers said noise complaints needed to be ongoing for a
compliance order to be granted. The other place-managers’ agreement with this statement
indicated that they too had felt restricted in issuing breach notices for disruptive behaviours
relating to noise. There were two aspects of the place-managers’ accounts that differ from the
literature that examines tenancy guidelines and policy. First, place-managers suggested that
both assault and noise disruptions required the same approach from housing governance.
However, Martin et al. (2019) report that these two types of disruptions fall under different
tenancy management policies, each with their own breach provisions. Assault falls under a
zero-tolerance approach, meaning one incident is sufficient to start breach proceedings
against the offending tenant. In contrast, noise complaints are considered a nuisance and fall
under a three-strike approach, where the nuisance requires three breach notices before an
eviction proceeding can commence. Despite these differences, place-managers perceived
their tenancy management as equally powerless in both cases. Second, despite wanting to
evict tenants engaging in disruptive behaviour, place-managers did not consider VCAT a
viable mechanism for this. Walsh’s (2022) research on evictions contrasted with this, finding
that social landlords in Victoria and other states and territories can utilise tenancy tribunals
for evictions. Of the 34 Victorian eviction cases included in Walsh’s research, 65% found in
favour of the landlord. Further, the evidence used included unsworn affidavits and statements
from unidentified people. While the eviction process may be nuanced and challenging,
Walsh’s research illustrates that evictions do occur, and possibly while protecting the identity
of others whose ontological security is at risk.
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Consistent across these types of breaches are that they require action from the place-manager
or housing providers. Housing providers and their staff need to use the mechanisms available
to follow up breaches, including tenancy tribunals, to facilitate safe and predictable home
environments. However, different interpretations of these mechanisms, and perceptions of
their utility to address disruptive behaviour, suggest inconsistencies across how the unmaking
of home can be addressed through housing governance. As such, having experiences of
ontological insecurity rectified may, to a degree, be dependent on the individual place-
manager rather than a systematic response.
7.5 Conclusion
This chapter examined the way social and affordable participants had their homes unmade at
North-East and North-West Burbs. In doing so, I have extended Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998)
framework of ontological security by examining how specific conditions of home were
unmade, and the emotional impact that the unmaking of these conditions had on tenant
participants. First, I showed how home unmaking at North-East Burb was contained to the
material conditions and was caused by neighbours intruding into the private space. These
intrusions were frequent but unpredictable, diminishing participants’ control over their
dwellings, making them feel unsafe and unable to relax, and limiting the use of their private
space. The inability to negotiate a resolution to the disruption contributed to this emotional
impact.
Next, I also showed how home was materially and socially unmade within the shared space at
North-West Burb. Material unmaking consisted of visitor intrusions and material disorder.
This reduced tenant participants’ self-esteem and conflicted with their values. The social
unmaking of home at North-West Burb comprised of racism and social disorder from visitors,
including visitors taking ownership of the shared space, assault, and concerning interactions
with children. The impact from socially unmaking home included non-belonging, feeling
unsafe, and restricting interactions within the shared space. While tenant participants
acknowledged their neighbours and their neighbours’ visitors caused the material and social
disruptions, they perceived Unison as responsible for rectifying the situation. Unison’s failure
to meet tenant participants’ expectations heightened the unmaking of home.
I then examined possible explanations for why the factors that unmade home at North-West
Burb were far more numerous and severe than at North-East Burb. The permeability of
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North-West Burb was greater, with numerous access points at the site, and there were several
shared spaces with ambiguous ownership. Further, on-site governance was minimal and often
inaccessible. In contrast, North-East Burb had a single secure entrance at the front, limited
shared space, and the shared space that did exist had more obvious ownership, with regular
and accessible on-site governance from Unison. Such differences may have contributed to
why visitors were more easily able to access North-West Burb and were able to take
ownership and set the social norms within the shared space, compared to North-East Burb.
While much of the built environment was unchangeable for North-West Burb, the social
factors relating to on-site governance provided insights to how some of the adverse
experiences of tenants could be minimised.
Finally, I examined mechanisms for housing governance to address the unmaking of home,
specifically the use of tenant allocations and evictions. Staff accounts highlighted how
limitations within the realms of their governing control were shaped by organisational policy,
partnerships with local external service providers, and the tenancy tribunal. Inconsistent
arrangements and perceptions of the utility of these mechanisms undermined Unison’s ability
to contribute to the collective production of ontological security.
While the nature and setting of home unmaking was distinct between the two housing sites, I
argued there were two similarities. First, tenant participants’ neighbours were a key factor,
due to the neighbours’ behaviour or the behaviour of the neighbours’ visitors. Second, the
unmaking of home was often made worse by tenant participants’ unmet expectation that
Unison would rectify the issue, emphasising tenant participants’ reliance on housing
governance to make and maintain home. As such, I illustrated the merit in furthering Dupuis
and Thorns’ (1998) ontological security framework to include the role of neighbours and
housing governance when examining the unmaking of home in community housing. The next
chapter examines the practices tenant participants and Unison engaged in to remake home.
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8. Remaking home: Practices to minimise the impact of
ontological insecurity
8.1 Introduction
While the uncertainty of place threatens how ontological security can be established, Giddens
(1984) argues that we continuously endeavour to gain or regain autonomy and control to re-
establish a sense of ontological security. In the context of home, this can be understood as
remaking home. Within housing research, the making and unmaking of home are more
established applications of ontological security, while remaking home is relatively
unexplored. In this chapter, I address this gap by arguing that remaking home can be defined
as practices used to restore a sense of ontological security after it has been threatened or
diminished. In the community housing at North-West and North-East Burbs, remaking home
practices were informed by tenant participants’ past experiences and their social and
economic position within broader housing, labour, and welfare systems. Consideration for
these factors meant that a remade home did not always foster a fully restored sense of
security. Rather, remaking home practices functioned to lessen the impact of ontological
insecurity, forming a compromised version of home but one that felt safer and more liveable.
Previous chapters have established that social and affordable housing tenant participants
shared comparable past and current social and economic contexts, and this chapter continues
to support this argument by highlighting how remaking home practices were similar between
the two tenure groups.
I use Giddens’ (1991, p. 131) idea of ‘adaptive reactions’ as a starting point to explain the
practices that tenant participants engaged in to remake home. Adaptive reactions are tangible
and emotional responses that individuals experience to risks which threaten their sense of
ontological security (Giddens, 1991). They are used to re-establish a sense of trust in the
social and material environment, to understand the social order, and to construct one’s
identity within it (Giddens, 1991). I extend this idea by examining how tenant participants
adapt to and accommodate threats to ontological security when, in community housing, their
capacity to resolve the threat is diminished or non-existent. Instead, tenant participants shifted
their focus to how they responded to the threat. To that end, I use Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998)
framework of ontological security to examine how these practices restored home conditions.
There are parallels between the markers of home unmade in Chapter Seven and the
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conditions remade in this chapter. Practices centred around regaining a sense of control,
protecting identity construction, and recreating constancy and predictability in the social
environment to feel safe.
In the first section I examine the social and emotional practices tenant participants engaged in
to remake home. Drawing on Giddens’ (1991) adaptive responses, this section explores how
tenant participants use what I have called ‘detached acceptance’ and express optimism to
remake home by accepting their circumstances and reframing their responses to disruptions. I
introduce additional theoretical concepts to understand practices that sit outside of Giddens’
ideas, namely Wacquant’s (2010, p. 217) concept of ‘distancing’, where individuals
distinguish and detach themselves from territorial stigma, and Cheshire and Buglar’s (2016,
p. 741) notion of ‘sanctioning’ as a social response to problematic neighbours. These
practices draw attention to the dynamic nature of homemaking; tenant participant experiences
are contextualised within their homemaking and unmaking experiences and their lack of
housing and mobility options given their social and economic circumstances.
In the second section I examine how governing systems are used to remake home. Building
on Giddens’ (1991, p. 132) idea of ‘radical engagement’, this section illustrates how tenant
participants and one place-manager attempt to use governing systems to restore a sense of
ontological security. Differences in the responsiveness of place-managers between North-
East and North-West Burb informed the success of radical engagement as a practice to
remake home. As such, I identify how housing providers can be co-producers in re-
establishing a sense of ontological security, but that the success of this practice may be
dependent on individual place-managers rather than an organisational response, reinforcing
the need to extend Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) conditions of home to explain the
contemporary conditions of community housing.
8.2 Remaking home through emotional and social practices
8.2.1 Detached acceptance
‘Detached acceptance’ was an emotional practice that tenant participants used in response to
material and social disorder, including diminished control over rubbish, property damage, and
social interactions in the shared space that meant the shared space conflicted with tenant
participant identities, impeded on self-esteem, and left them feeling unsafe. Acceptance of
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this material and social disorder functioned to achieve a sense of control as a marker of home
(Dupuis & Thorns, 1998)—in lieu of feeling in control over their social and material
environment, these tenant participants instead controlled their perception of home. Giddens
(1991, p. 131) identifies ‘pragmatic acceptance’ as an adaptive response. This response
involves an ongoing internal negotiation of trying to achieve security and control through
accepting the lack of external control and security. Giddens theorised that such responses
may be associated with hope or ambivalence. In community housing, this was expressed as
‘detached acceptance’; that is, tenant participants rationalised an emotional and social
detachment from place expressed through acceptance of substandard conditions that
threatened their sense of home. For example, Dorothy rationalised the lack of safety at North-
West Burb by devaluing her own life. She said: ‘If I really care(d) whether I live or died, I
would be very worried.’
Dorothy distanced herself from the disruptions that made her feel unsafe by expressing
ambivalence for her own life. She noted that the lack of safety was a real concern, but she
appeared to have a logic that if she did not value living then her safety was not important. In
doing so, Dorothy accepted her home environment. For Dorothy, remaking home in this way
was more manageable than the stress or anxiety associated with being concerned for her own
safety, knowing the limited control she had over the shared space and making it safe. As
examined in Chapter Seven, tenant participant capacity to alleviate threats and associated
anxiety was perceived to be so low that rationalising their circumstances in this way was
more achievable. By accepting she lacked control, Dorothy was able to reconstruct a sense of
safety at home.
Adrian identified this as ‘self-preservation’, noting that while he disliked the disruptive
behaviours at home, he accepted his inability to control the social and material disorder in
shared spaces. Instead, Adrian emotionally adapted his response to remake home. He said:
I don’t miss sleep over it. It is what it is. I can’t change it. We’ve tried talking
and this and that—doesn’t work. You just do what you can to protect yourself;
self-preservation and whatever it might be. Do I hate people constantly trying
to attempt to steal my car? Yes, it does piss me off. Do I hate it when people just
come in and knock on their doors? Yes, it does but it will happen. You just accept
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it, and don’t worry about it. And, I think there’s a lot of us who come to the
point, where you just have to accept this.
In fact, throughout Adrian’s interview, each of his stories concluded with an unmaking of
home, that is the disruption or damage to elements of home (Baxter & Brickell, 2014;
Cheshire et al., 2021) by acknowledging his powerlessness through this adaptive response.
For example, when discussing the drug use and associated behaviours at North-West Burb,
Adrian concluded: ‘What can I do? Nothing. Can I change it? No. Can I control it? No.’ And
another time in relation to material disorder, such as shopping trolleys being left on the
housing site, Adrian said: ‘Look, you can just turn a blind eye and not worry about it. Don’t
care.’ Adrian emphasised the lack of control he had over the behaviours of his neighbours
and the condition of the housing site. Adrian indicated acceptance of his diminished control
through displays of ambivalence—not losing sleep, not worrying, and turning a blind eye to
pretend the disorder was not there. Power (2022) has found low-income women living with
housing insecurity utilised the same approach—they expressed acceptance for their housing
insecurity by not worrying or ignoring it, as an emotional response. Like the women in
Power’s research, Dorothy and Adrian used acceptance to reduce the impact of having
minimal control over external factors that shaped experiences of home, and in doing so,
enabled a sense of home to be remade.
In accepting this lack of control, Adrian and Dorothy also engaged in detached social
practices to reconstruct a sense of safety. For example, Dorothy’s friends asked her, ‘How do
you handle it?’ to which Dorothy replied, ‘I close my door.’ Dorothy explained why:
When I first got here, I did go out. Not call the police, but I did go out. I literally
heard a man and a woman outside, and I heard her, “Please move, get out of
my way.” So, I just stuck my head out and I said, “Hi, can I help you?” and
they both turned on me. And I thought, “I wish someone had helped me.” That’s
what was in my head. They just turned on me [growling noise]. Okay, back off.
So, I don’t. I don’t go out to look. I don’t.
Dorothy, who had previously experienced family violence, had attempted to help a female
neighbour, but in doing so put herself at risk. As such, Dorothy now separated herself from
the incidents that occurred in the shared space at North-West Burb. Social and emotional
strategies intersected here. By socially separating herself through visual and social
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disengagement, she could emotionally detach from the incidents in the shared space to
‘handle’ or accept her shared home environment and create a sense of safety within her
private space.
As examined in the previous chapter, some visitors to North-West Burb contributed to social
and material disorder by, for example, damaging property and assaulting tenants. Adrian
accepted the presence of visitors who engaged in this disruptive and illegal behaviour at the
housing site. Further, he acknowledged that any confrontation may have increased risk to his
safety. As such, Adrian explained how he accommodated them to minimise this risk:
I just play the good Samaritan, open the door, where else you want to go? I’ll
take you there, you know, and I think that’s the game we all pretty much play
here.
Adrian played the role of good Samaritan, as someone who helps strangers, to restore a sense
of safety when in the shared space. This helped avoid potentially unsafe situations by
assisting visitors with their requests. Adrian’s account that this was a ‘game we all play’
suggested this strategy was used by other tenants at the housing site. Tenant anxieties can be
associated with places or parts of estates that are viewed as unsafe due to unknown people
loitering or using space for illicit activities (Hicks, 2020; Santos et al., 2018). Dorothy and
Adrian’s experiences extend this by illustrating some of the ways tenant participants mitigate
the associated risks. Such practices are of particular significance given the governing
limitations examined in Chapter Seven. Considering the challenges and barriers for both
tenant participants and housing providers in addressing social and material disorder through
the VCAT system, tenant participants utilised other practices to restore a sense of safety and
control, and in doing so, remake home. For Dorothy, this involved socially and emotionally
detaching from the incidents in the shared space, while Adrian created safety through
diplomacy when necessary.
The necessity of ‘detached acceptance’ can be explained by the tenant participants’ economic
position within the context of the broader housing, welfare, and labour systems. Giddens
(1991) contends that acceptance is often underpinned with deep-seated anxieties, and this was
evident in both Adrian and Dorothy’s accounts. Chapter Five illustrated how tenant
participants valued their homes for providing freedom from past housing and economic
insecurities, enabling a sense of ontological security to emerge. This same context
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underpinned why tenant participants engaged in internal negotiations to accept their
conditions—they had limited alternative options given their earning capacity and the cost of
housing. Dorothy, a social tenant participant, believed that given her finances, wherever she
resided there would be social disorder, removing her choice to live in better circumstances.
She said:
People say you should move on because of the [neighbour] and other people
carrying on. Well, wherever I go there’ll be people carrying on. Where I can
afford to live, you’re going to have this. I assume. I haven’t had the choice.
Adrian, an affordable tenant participant, had a similar rationale. He considered that moving to
a different housing site would not necessarily improve his home environment. Adrian likened
an improved, disruption-free environment to ‘fairy land’, emphasising how unlikely he
believed this to be. He said:
It doesn’t mean the grass is greener on the other side, you know. You’ll just end
up in, I won’t say exactly the same situation. Of course if you move somewhere
different it’s going to be different. But there’s always going to be its own set of
situations and circumstances you’re going to have to deal with there anyway.
It’s not like you’re going to go somewhere and it’s fairy land, you know it’s not
going to happen.
The lack of choice in having a home where Dorothy and Adrian would have control over the
social and material environment indicated little hope or belief that their circumstances could
improve. This reflected how aware Dorothy and Adrian were of broader housing market
limitations relative to their incomes. Dorothy received the Disability Support Pension (DSP)
but even Adrian, as an employed affordable tenant participant, associated upward housing
mobility as a fantasy. Dorothy and Adrian’s concern was well-founded. Anglicare Australia’s
(2023) annual affordability snapshot of the private rental market for low-income households
reported zero affordable properties (that is, properties where rent is 30% or less than the
occupant’s income) in Metropolitan Melbourne for single people receiving the DSP, and only
0.4% of listed properties as affordable to single people on minimum wage. Even within
regional Victoria, only 0.1% of listed properties were affordable to single people receiving
DSP, with only 1% as affordable for singles on minimum wage. Further, with such limited
social housing stock relative to demand, the opportunity to transfer to another social housing
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location was unlikely. It was within this context that both Adrian and Dorothy had no choice
but to accept their living environments, and so engaged in detached ‘don’t care’ logic to
remake a sense of home.
8.2.2 Expressing optimism
Some tenant participants expressed optimism to emotionally accommodate less than ideal
home environments. This builds on Giddens’ (1991, p. 131) notion of ‘sustained optimism’
that consists of continued faith that solutions can be found to life’s risks to obtain long-term
security. In community housing, tenant participants focused on the more positive aspects of
their less-than-ideal circumstances to minimise the impact of having home unmade. In this
sense, optimism re-established a sense of ontological security. Control underpinned this—
unable to feel a sense of control over their social and material environments, tenant
participants instead controlled their emotional response to aspects of the environment that
diminished their sense of home.
For example, Monika considered herself ‘lucky’ compared to others who were homeless. She
said: ‘You think there’s a lot of homeless people, we’re lucky to have a place to live even
though the building does have problems’, minimising the impact of the disorder at North-
West Burb by feeling fortunate to have somewhere to live. Monika’s account highlights how
housing histories inform remaking home. Monika compared her circumstances to more
vulnerable experiences of housing insecurity such as being homeless. Indeed, Chapter Five
examined how Monika’s experiences of home and associated wellbeing were contextualised
in her past experiences of housing insecurity. Monika compared herself to others worse off as
a rationale to remake home. Social Comparison Theory is relevant here—individuals
compare themselves to others to evaluate their self-worth, outcomes, and life circumstances
relative to others (Gerber, 2020; Suls et al., 2019). Generally, individuals will compare
upwardly to those doing better as a motivational strategy or compare downwardly to those
worse off to feel better about themselves (Gerber, 2020). Comparisons are often made to
others whose circumstances are close to our own (Gerber, 2020). This was apparent in
Monika’s account. Monika used her recent memory of housing insecurity and the knowledge
of others still experiencing this to console herself given her negative experiences at the
housing site, making the living environment more bearable.
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Coraline used optimism to regain a sense of control. Chapter Seven examined how a
diminished sense of control diminished Coraline’s sense of home—Coraline’s neighbour’s
possessions entering her courtyard and the noise from her neighbour’s children disrupting her
home. Further, Coraline could not foresee a way of negotiating a solution to this issue with
either the neighbour or the place-manager, exacerbating her diminished control. Instead,
Coraline’s focus for control shifted to herself, using optimism to mentally accommodate her
circumstances to make them more bearable. Coraline framed the living environment as an
opportunity to practise self-regulation, used to alleviate the immediate stress of the
unpredictability at home. She said: ‘The upside of that is I try and think to myself, well okay,
use this as an exercise to keep calm and not let it get to you.’
Unable to control the social and material environments, Coraline instead tried to control her
emotional response to the unmaking of her home by keeping calm and controlling the way
the disruption affected her. Power’s (2022) research with older women living in insecure
housing has found that they also mentally reframed their circumstances to cope with their
sense of ontological insecurity. But Caroline noted ‘it’s never going to be enough’ and so was
working towards a pathway out of community housing. Here, Coraline used her current
context as motivation for a more tangible but long-term outcome. The combination of
undesirable housing conditions with inadequate individual self-regulation practices motivated
Coraline to start her own alternative lifestyle community. She said:
I’m trying to build a big fucking empire with it. Online. I’ve got notebooks full
of stuff that I’m working on, making and selling online, all sorts of stuff ... A
part of me is grateful that it’s shit, because it’s pushed me to get out.
Building her own business was Coraline’s avenue for gaining control over her housing
options. Coraline framed her subpar living conditions as positive, expressing gratitude for
North-East Burb being ‘shit’, providing her with the ambition to pursue her business idea and
to eventually move out. Here, restoring a sense of ontological security in Coraline’s current
circumstances consisted of being optimistic that she would have a different housing option,
and exit pathway, in the years to come. In this sense, remaking home can mean aspiring to
move. Plage et al. (2023) highlight the temporal dimension of ontological security—having a
constant and predictable environment enables one to plan ahead. When this constancy and
predictability is threatened, the capacity to consider the future is undermined (Plage et al.,
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2023). Coraline illustrates another dimension to this. When home is unmade, planning for a
better future can bring comfort and a sense of security to the present, although this sense of
security is compromised. For Coraline, engaging in future aspirations remade home by
framing subpar conditions as both positive and temporary, and therefore more tolerable. The
framing of home as temporary provided the sense of ease necessary to remake a sense of
ontological security, albeit a less than optimal version.
8.2.3 Distancing from stigma
Some tenant participants engaged in distancing as an emotional strategy to remake home in
response to stigma. Wacquant (2010) explains emotional distancing as a response to protect
self and identity in the context of stigmatised areas, also known as territorial stigma.
Wacquant et al. (2014) state territorial stigma impacts on people living in disparaged areas by
excluding them from the acceptance of others. Sullivan and Akhtar (2019) connect territorial
stigma with ontological security. Ontological security means having trust in the stability of
social and material environments to understand one’s place within the social order and to
construct identity within it (Giddens, 1991; Sullivan & Akhtar, 2019). Territorial stigma
unsettles the trust from which identity can be constructed and confuses understandings of
social order (Sullivan & Akhtar, 2019). To overcome this, Wacquant (2010) contends
individuals deny connection to people and places attached to stigma to separate themselves
from belonging there. By distancing themselves from the deprived social conditions,
individuals alleviate the demoralisation from internalised stigma (Wacquant, 2010).
The relationship between territorial stigma and ontological security extends to homemaking.
When a home is secure it becomes a place to construct identity (Dupuis, 2012; Dupuis &
Thorns, 1998), but, as the tenant participants at North-East and North-West Burb showed,
this process can be interrupted when extensions of home contrast with the dweller’s values
and self-perception. In response, tenant participants at the two housing sites engaged in
distancing to protect their identity and self-esteem that was threatened by territorial stigma.
Here, territorial stigma occurred at two spatial levels—at a neighbourhood level at North-
West Burb, and at a housing site level at both North-East and North-West Burbs.
Underinvestment in public amenities and services in North-West Burb (Lemon, 1982; Peel,
2003) and the social and economic impacts of deindustrialisation (O’Hanlon, 2018) had
contributed to the area now experiencing severe, multiple, and persistent disadvantage
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(Tanton et al., 2021). These factors, paired with the media representations of North-West
Burb as a place of ‘looming social crisis’ (Peel, 2003, p. 16), have all contributed to
neighbourhood level territorial stigma. Tenant participants at North-West Burb were aware of
this stigma. For example, Monika experienced neighbourhood stigma from her social
networks when she moved to North-West Burb. She said:
Before having had any experience with North-West Burb every single person
that I had spoken to had either said, “Oh my God, North-West Burb is awful”,
or “It used to be really bad but it’s not so bad now.” So, there’s already this
stigma of living in North-West Burb.
Monika, a single parent who had left family violence, rationalised moving to the area by
saying, ‘I’ll take anything I’m given, I don’t care, it’s a roof.’ Monika prioritised shelter over
the pitfalls of living in a stigmatised area. Her example highlights the dynamic and non-linear
nature of homemaking. In Monika’s case, this was driven by parenting. She valued her home
for providing security and stability for her child, and for being located near amenities such as
schools and healthcare that helped to facilitate family life.
Oscar also reported neighbourhood level stigma from friends and family, who, just before his
moving to North-West Burb, had told him, ‘It’s not a safe place to live’ and that the area has
the ‘worst train station in Melbourne’. Oscar concluded he had ‘proved them wrong’ because
he ‘feels safe in a way’. When discussing this, Oscar compared his previous shared
accommodation where he was ‘broken into all the time’ to North-West Burb, where he had
not had any break-ins. Oscar used this comparison logic to overcome the experience of
territorial stigma and associated impact on feelings of safety.
Wacquant et al. (2014) refer to territorial stigma in broader spatial areas such as
neighbourhoods; however, experiences at North-West and North-East Burbs suggest that
housing site-level stigma is also important in community housing. For example, for Monika,
the housing site in North-West Burb was a stigmatised and disparaged place. The social
disorder at North-West Burb conflicted with Monika’s values and her sense of control over
the social norms her child was exposed to. With no foreseeable option to move elsewhere,
Monika adapted to this by distancing herself from the housing site. When discussing being
aware of the ‘drug dealing’ at North-West Burb, Monika said: ‘I’m in normal circumstances.
I go to work, I come home, that sort of thing. I keep to myself.’ Monika distanced herself
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from place by describing herself as ‘normal’ due to being employed and maintaining a
regular routine, and by keeping to herself. Macdonald and Marsh (2002) found young people
living in a socially excluded area in the United Kingdom also used distancing to detach from
the normalisation of drug use by de-identifying with and rejecting all drug use. Similarly,
August’s (2014) research at a public housing estate in Canada found tenants made themselves
distinct from their stigmatised neighbours by noting how their choices and behaviours made
them distinct. Likewise, Monika used similar practices in community housing to create
separation between herself and the social norms at the housing site that were at odds with her
own values.
The suburb of North-East Burb was not a stigmatised area. North-East Burb enjoyed relative
wealth and prosperity, with higher levels of education, employment, and income not only in
comparison to North-West Burb, but also compared to state and national averages (ABS,
2018a, 2018b). However, tenants residing in social housing located within higher
socioeconomic areas still report experiencing stigma (Arthurson, 2011, 2012; Shaw et al.,
2013), and this stigma can be held by the tenants themselves (Arthurson & Jacobs, 2006).
This was the case for Coraline, who distanced herself from her neighbours at North-East
Burb. She said:
I’m busy, I keep to myself. I wonder sometimes if some of the people here are
just vegetating because they’re unemployed. Not all of them, I know, but you
know what I mean.
Like Monika, Coraline used employment as a point of difference to her neighbours. While
Coraline was also unemployed, she considered herself different because she was busy
working on her own business. Here, Coraline reproduced stereotypes about social tenants
who were unemployed. Arthurson and Jacobs (2006) report that social tenant complaints can
reflect the individualising of poverty and crime found in social housing discourse. Coraline’s
account was reflective of this through her stigmatising of unemployed tenants as ‘vegetating’.
In doing so, Coraline distanced herself from her neighbours to reduce or eliminate the
demoralisation of her circumstances (Wacquant, 2010).
The necessity for Monika and Coraline to engage in this practice relates to what is known as
the ‘last resort of social housing’, where moving to and remaining in social housing occurs in
an absence of other options and where the tenants have no choice over where they live
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(Atkinson & Jacobs, 2008; Blessing, 2016; Power & Bergan, 2018). As noted above, Monika
would ‘take anything’ due to her needing safety for herself and her child. Coraline’s
experience suggests the idea of ‘last resort’ also applies to affordable housing. Coraline
reported limited choice or capacity to move elsewhere. She said: ‘There’s really no proper
control I have. If there was, I could leave of my own volition. But I can’t because you need
money to leave.’ Coraline continued to explain the barriers she faced: ‘It would be very
difficult to find a financial way out, because even if I had a cleaning job, it would take me so
long.’ Even as an affordable housing tenant participant, Coraline’s earning capacity was a
barrier to finding alternative housing. Indeed, Wiesel and Pawson’s (2015) research found
that moving into social housing is an enabler to gaining employment, but that employment
did not support tenants to move out of social housing and into the private sector. They and
others (Baker et al., 2021) argue that the security of tenure offered in social housing
outweighs the benefits of moving out, even if the tenant is paying market-rate rent in their
social property. For Coraline, obtainable employment options were not considered to have a
remuneration high enough to afford private rental prices regardless of tenancy conditions. As
such, both Monika and Coraline were unable to relocate to areas with a better reputation or
with neighbours who aligned with their ideals. Instead, Monika and Coraline used distancing
practices to reinforce to themselves that they were distinct from their neighbours, mitigating
the impact of stigma on their sense of home.
The use of distancing within the housing sites examined provides more insight into how
tenant participants construct identities in community housing. This differed to
homeownership, where, as Dupuis and Thorns (1998) have examined, identity construction
consists of pride and self-esteem connected to being a homeowner, and thus meeting societal
norms. Instead, in community housing, part of constructing identities consisted of reducing
stigma and its impact on self-esteem and safety. I have argued in previous chapters that in
community housing the role of neighbours was prominent in shaping experiences of home,
including, as shown here, through distancing practices to remake home. While Monika and
Coraline shared some life circumstances with their neighbours, they diverged in terms of
values and social norms, and it was this divergence that threatened Monika and Coraline’s
identity and self-esteem. In response, they used their employment to make themselves distinct
from their neighbours. Doing this appeared to minimise the impact of living in a stigmatised
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place, or next door to stigmatised people, and therefore acted to reconcile their less-than-ideal
version of home.
8.2.4 Social self-sanctioning
Tenant participants engaged in ‘social self-sanctioning’, that is, they socially separated
themselves from their neighbours to re-establish a sense of trust in social predictability,
recreating a feeling of safety to remake home. This strategy was used in relation to conflict
with neighbours. Monika, Harry, and Dorothy said they kept to themselves. This differed to
distancing from stigma—rather than distancing themselves from stigma that threatened their
identities, social self-sanctioning was preceded by past conflict with neighbours with whom
they had formed friendship-like relationships. In this sense, conflict with neighbours had
diminished tenant participants’ trust in the predictability of their social environments, and this
unpredictability had contributed to feeling unsafe (Dupuis & Thorn, 1998). Trust in the
predictability of the social environment is key to ontological security (Dupuis, 2012; Padgett,
2007), and tenant participants’ accounts pointed to how they socially sanctioned themselves
to re-establish this sense of trust and predictability.
Cheshire and Buglar (2016) examined intense forms of neighbouring practices of social
housing tenants. They argue that limited external networks, stable tenure, lower mobility,
and, in some cases, communal space that supports incidental interaction lead to greater social
and physical proximity that manifest overt neighbouring practices. This type of neighbouring
is more intense than middle-class practices, and when successful, can lead to emotional and
social support. But when this leads to conflict, Cheshire and Buglar (2016) report social
housing tenants engage in collective sanctions as a distancing strategy to ostracise or avoid
troublesome tenants. This can include, for example, numerous tenants coming together to talk
about and exclude the problematic tenant or submitting complaints about them (Cheshire &
Buglar, 2016). There were no reported instances of collective sanctioning at North-West or
North-East Burbs. Instead, Monika, Dorothy, and Harry self-sanctioned themselves to be
socially separated from their neighbours, avoiding more intense forms of neighbouring.
While these tenant participants still provided examples of interacting with their neighbours,
they described self-sanctioning to protect themselves from further conflict. For example,
Monika, at North-West Burb, self-sanctioned herself from her neighbours by avoiding close
relationships. She said:
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I don’t really have strong relationships with the people that live here, because
I try to keep to myself ... In the past I developed a relationship with one of my
other neighbours, which she ended up assaulting me after a period of time. So,
my sort of thing with neighbours is I’m happy to have that on face value
relationship, but I’ve learnt in the past from living here that if you’re too
friendly with your neighbours it does become problematic.
Monika’s trust in forming relationships with her neighbours was hindered by being assaulted
by someone she had developed a relationship with. Monika’s response to recreate a feeling of
safety at home was to maintain relationships at ‘face value’ and avoid deeper relationships by
keeping to herself.
Harry employed a similar approach. I observed Harry interacting with his neighbours with
greetings and small talk at North-East Burb, but in his interview, Harry explained why he
now avoided deeper social interactions with his neighbours:
I don’t trust anybody here. There’s nobody worth trusting. Because simply for
that same reason, people will turn on you for the silliest things. For something
that somebody said that you’ve said. Well, I haven’t said anything because I
don’t talk to anybody. People make shit up. And I can’t figure out why, and they
thrive on making your life a misery. It’s part of their entertainment.
Harry’s lack of trust and subsequent self-sanctioning was a strategy for self-preservation after
he had been hurt or mistreated by neighbours. Harry’s account indicated the overt forms of
neighbouring discussed by Cheshire and Bulgar (2016), such as gossip and conflict for
entertainment. Awareness of such gossip suggested that Harry had been familiar with his
neighbours and expressed confusion as to why those neighbours had created conflict with
him. As a result, Harry reported diminished trust in his neighbours, and so avoided speaking
to anyone. This acted as protection from the social unpredictability of overt neighbouring and
re-established a sense of constancy at home.
Dorothy also reported forming a friendship when she first moved into North-West Burb
before realising she did not share the same values as the friend. Dorothy said she then
‘disengaged with her because I discovered she’s just a little bigot ... I think some people need
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attention. Need drama. Where I try to avoid it at all costs’. Dorothy then resolved to keep to
herself. She said:
I tend to keep to myself. Yeah. I mean I have friends. Not many [laughs]. Yeah,
I do have two friends I see quite often. So, I can socialise, and I don’t need to
socialise here.
Dorothy had been open to forming friendships with neighbours, but upon realising the lack of
shared values, and with a preference for being inconspicuous and having a drama-free home
environment, she self-sanctioned. Parallels can be drawn between the framing of a drama-free
home and constancy and predictability in the social environment identified by Giddens (1984,
1991) as necessary for a sense of ontological security. By avoiding drama through self-
sanctioning, Dorothy could re-establish the social constancy and predictability needed to
remake home. Although somewhat limited, Dorothy reported having an external social
network consisting of two friends whom she would meet regularly. As such, the need to
engage in relationships at North-West Burb was reduced.
The social experiences at North-East and North-West Burbs contributed to home being
physically and emotionally unsafe. Dorothy, Monika, and Harry had all encountered forming
social relationships with neighbours that had ended in different circumstances. Monika had
been assaulted, Harry had been emotionally hurt by having his trust betrayed, and Dorothy
had realised that she had different values to her neighbour. In response, all three participants
engaged in ‘social self-sanctioning’—they avoided closer relationships with neighbours as a
practice to remake home as a place of social and physical safety. Approaches like this are
common. De Souza (2022) also found tenants in a redeveloped mixed-tenure housing estate
in London engaged in what she calls a ‘guarded approach’ (p. 105) to neighbourly relations.
Tenants limited their interactions to basic neighbourly greetings following incidents of
assault or perceiving neighbours to be prone to conflict (de Souza, 2022). Monika, Harry, and
Dorothy sanctioned themselves from their neighbours and the unpredictability of those
relationships to restore a sense of safety and trust in the predictability of home.
8.3 Remaking home through housing governance
Some tenant participants’ remaking home practices consisted of appealing to housing
governance to rectify the disruptions to their home. This approach to remaking home
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resonates with Giddens’ (1991, p. 132) idea of ‘radical engagement’, that is, directly
contesting the social and institutional systems responsible for the risk, in this case, Unison, to
address a diminished sense of ontological security. Here, the expectation was that Unison was
responsible for, and had the capacity to, address the social and material disorders that unmade
tenant participants’ homes. The same expectation was illustrated in Chapter Seven, whereby
tenant participants expressed that Unison was ultimately responsible for the condition of the
housing site and where Unison’s perceived failure to address such disruptions exacerbated
tenant participants’ unmaking of home. This belief was reinforced by tenant participants’
attempts to have Unison address social and material disruptions. At North-West Burb, this
included various methods to appeal to Unison. For example, Adrian listed the efforts he and
his neighbours had made to engage with Unison. He said:
We’ve sent plenty of emails, photos, videos. We’ve even gone as far as
contacting the housing register to tell them, but it just, it’s on deaf ears, and
look that’s just the way it is. There’s nothing you can do about it.
Monika also reported an unsuccessful attempt to remake home by engaging with Unison. In
Monika’s case, she oscillated between Unison and the police in attempts to have tenant
assaults addressed at North-West Burb. She said:
You would report it to Unison, and they’d be like, “It’s a police matter.” And
then the police would often say, “Oh, that’s a matter of your tenancy.” So, we’re
going backwards and forwards with what’s going on.
Emir also endeavoured to remake home through engagement with Unison, saying he ‘was on
the tenant advisory group. I’ve also written, I send mail’. Indeed, during fieldwork, Emir
showed me a copy of the emails he had sent to Unison. Emir expressed frustration that he had
not received a reply to this correspondence. He said, ‘Can you imagine! I haven’t got any
response. And I sent it through mail. Again, no response.’
These accounts indicate that tenant participants employed multiple methods, or forms of
radical engagement, to try to remake home. Giddens’ (1991) notion of radical engagement
consists of engaging in action to reduce or remove the risk to ontological security. The tenant
participants at North-West Burb illustrated how this was practised in community housing.
This included communicating directly with Unison by sending emails, providing evidence via
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photographs, and joining the tenant advisory group, a group initiated by Unison where
selected tenants met quarterly as a mechanism for tenants to have a say in how their housing
was delivered (Unison, 2025). When this failed, the tenant participants challenged Unison by
appealing for support from external systems, such as calling the police and the Victorian
Housing Register (VHR)19, to hold Unison accountable for the risk to their sense of home.
Yet, these practices were ineffective at re-establishing tenant participants’ sense of
ontological insecurity.
Consistent across Emir, Adrian, and Monika’s accounts was a lack of response from Unison,
with either no response (Emir and Adrian) or ambiguous communication about where the
onus lay for responding to the issues that made home unsafe (Monika). While Monika and
Emir remained frustrated by the lack of response, as Monika expressed, ‘going backwards
and forwards’ and Emir’s disbelief, ‘can you imagine!’, Adrian said, ‘that’s just the way it is.
There’s nothing you can do about it’, an indication he accepted his powerlessness and
inability to change his circumstance, or the risk to his ontological security, a response also
reported in research by Wakefield and Elliot (2000) regarding ineffective attempts at radical
engagement.
Louisa, at North-East Burb, used a similar process of radical engagement, but with a better
outcome. Like the tenant participants at North-West Burb, Louisa’s initial attempt to have the
material disruptions to her home resolved included appeals to Unison. When this failed,
Louisa turned to an external organisation, the Tenants Union (now called Tenants Victoria
(Tenants Victoria, 2024)), who then represented Louisa at VCAT. Louisa said:
I ended up taking them [Unison] to VCAT because they weren’t doing anything
about it. And I had put in so many complaints, and nothing was done. And then
we got a new worker. Which is really good. She got things moving. When the
last worker left it was still in VCAT.
Louisa shared the outcome: ‘The VCAT member instructed Unison to move me to another
flat that was safer.’ Here, remaking home consisted of moving to a new dwelling while
remaining at North-East Burb. The role of neighbours and neighbourhood examined in
Chapter Six illustrates why remaining at North-East Burb was important—Louisa had been
19 The VHR is the Victorian Government’s system responsible for managing the social housing waitlist and allocations.
(Housing Vic, 2024b).
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living at North-East Burb for nine years and in that time had established emotional bonds
with her neighbours and routine within the neighbourhood, establishing a sense of belonging
to place. Louisa was able to maintain important social and emotional connections at the
housing site and neighbourhood while moving to a new dwelling where she had personal
control over her social and material environment, which contributed to fostering the feeling
of trust in predictability of the environment (Giddens, 1984, 1991). As such, Louisa reported
restoring a sense of ontological security by describing her home as now being a ‘safe haven’.
Of note is that this was a fuller sense of a remade home when compared to the compromised
versions discussed in the previous section.
The actions of housing governance were the key distinction between the successful remaking
of home by Louisa and the unsuccessful attempts made by tenant participants at North-West
Burb. The success of Louisa’s remaking home practice included the intersection of her own
actions with representation from the Tenants Union, combined with the new place-manager
who got the case ‘moving’ through the tenancy tribunal to hold the housing provider
responsible for facilitating home-like conditions. Conversely, for the tenant participants at
North-West Burb, appeals to the VHR and the unresponsiveness of their place-manager failed
to garner the required response to enable the tenant participants to remake home. The
different experiences highlighted the important role that place-managers played in co-
producing the remaking of home (Plage et al., 2023) by providing information and support so
that tenants could understand and access VCAT, and by linking tenants to external advocacy.
Inconsistencies across the two housing sites in the provision of required support shaped the
way tenant participants could remake home.
Louisa’s place-manager at North-East Burb provided additional examples of how housing
governance used radical engagement to support tenants to remake home, and in doing so, co-
produced ontological security. During fieldwork at North-East Burb I observed a place-
manager encouraging tenants to initiate a claim against Unison through VCAT:
The place-manager was speaking on the phone about carpet cleaning/
maintenance. They said, “Take us to VCAT. People need to know their rights.”
They said the tenant should have received reduced rent for the maintenance
issue, possibly carpet issues. They said that will make the other departments do
their jobs.
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The place-manager said to me: “The company is going to hate me because I
keep telling tenants to take us to VCAT.” (Observation, NEB, 22/1/20)
The place-manager’s use of radical engagement consisted of informing and encouraging
tenants to report Unison to VCAT, potentially at risk to their own employment, believing
Unison may ‘hate’ them as a result. The previous chapter examined how when place-
managers lacked efficacy in the VCAT process, home remained unmade. The place-
manager’s actions here offered a different perspective. They believed that VCAT could be
used as a mechanism to remake home, and so encouraged tenants to utilise this system and
provided them with information on their tenancy rights, such as their right to have a properly
maintained property and compensation for the periods where this was not the case. There are
similarities between this and the place-manager practices examined in Chapter Five, where
place-managers provided information on how to establish and maintain a tenancy. However,
here, the information provision reflected radical engagement, as the intent was to ensure
Unison maintained their side of the tenancy agreement and to encourage tenants to report it to
VCAT if Unison failed to do so. There is a dearth of scholarly literature that examines social
tenants initiating claims against social landlords through tenancy tribunals. The absence of
literature on this process may be an indication that few housing workers do this, supporting
Buhler and Tang’s (2020) finding that tenants have limited knowledge of their rights and how
to protect them, and this acts as a barrier to engaging in tenancy tribunals. In the above
example, the place-manager’s practice of informing and encouraging tenants to enact their
tenancy rights was an anomaly rather than standard practice within the organisation.
Therefore, as with the other dimensions of homemaking examined in previous chapters,
Unison’s collaboration in the remaking of home may be contingent on the individual place-
manager, rather than an organisational-wide process embedded with place-manager practices.
8.4 Conclusion
This chapter has examined practices that tenant participants and one place-manager used to
re-establish a sense of ontological security through restoring the conditions of home. I have
extended Giddens’ (1991) notion of adaptive reactions by providing insights into how tenants
living in community housing responded to threats and risks to re-establish a sense of
ontological security where options to move elsewhere were limited or non-existent. Indeed,
Giddens notes his idea of adaptive reactions is preliminary and requires further empirical
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development, which this chapter has provided. First, tenant participants used social and
emotional practices to remake home. Here, tenant participants were resolved to the fact that
disruptions to home existed and so they reframed and adjusted the way they responded to
such disruptions. This included the following: acceptance, through tenant participants
emotionally and socially detaching themselves from situations and neighbours; optimism,
where tenant participants drew attention to the positive aspects of their situations; distancing,
used to make themselves distinct from their neighbours and place, challenging territorial
stigma; and finally, social self-sanctioning, used to protect self from the unpredictability of
the social environment to restore a sense of physical, social, and emotional safety. Such
approaches did not appear to completely restore a sense of home. Rather, they compensated
for less-than-ideal circumstances to make home more tolerable.
Second, engaging with governing systems was used to address the disruption to home. While
numerous tenant participants attempted to use this approach, it was only successful for one
tenant participant. The successful use of this practice illustrates how the collaboration of
tenants, place-managers, the tenants union, and VCAT can remake home. When these
systems were used, a fuller sense of ontological security was re-established, emphasising the
importance of housing governance in remaking home and the need to consider housing
governance when facilitating experiences of ontological security in community housing.
Conversely, unresponsive place-manager practices impeded tenant participants’ capacity to
remake home and the collective reproduction of ontological security.
The analysis of remaking home practices furthers Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) framework by
highlighting the conditions of home that tenant participants attempted to remake, emphasising
the significance of these conditions to social and affordable housing tenants living in
community housing, namely, regaining a sense of safety, predictability, control, and identity
preservation. Social and affordable tenant participants had comparable experiences, with the
necessity for both tenure groups to re-establish these conditions contextualised within their
shared social and economic position, where the option to move elsewhere was restricted due
to a combination of an unaffordable private housing market, limited earning capacity, and
insufficient welfare support. In the next chapter I conclude the thesis by discussing the
implications of the findings, as well as identifying limitations and making suggestions for
future research.
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9. Conclusion
9.1 Introduction
In this final chapter I summarise the central findings of my research, and detail the empirical
and theoretical contributions to housing and home scholarship, and the implications for the
community housing sector. The aim of this research was to examine what social and
affordable mixed-tenure community housing offered the people who live there. The project
set out to compare and contrast the experiences of the two tenure groups, but significantly,
few differences were found, with both groups experiencing their community housing in
similar ways. Further, similarities between the two tenure groups were valued by tenant
participants — living next door to people with shared experience and similar socioeconomic
positions supported positive experiences. To investigate this, the overarching question my
research sought to answer was: how do social and affordable housing tenants construct
‘home’? The analysis was guided by the following sub-questions:
1) How do social and affordable tenants experience their home?
2) What value do social and affordable tenants assign to these experiences of home?
3) What factors facilitate, inhibit, and/or contribute to these experiences of home?
To answer these questions, I adopted a qualitative multimethod research design that was
guided by ethnographic principles. The fields of inquiry included two social and affordable
mixed-tenure community housing sites, North-East Burb and North-West Burb, owned and
delivered by Unison Housing. Four methods of data collection were used, including
document analysis, focus groups with Unison staff members (n = 12), field observation at the
two housing sites, and photo-elicited and semi-structured interviews with tenant participants
(n = 11). Data were thematically analysed, using an iterative process of inductive and
deductive analysis (Creswell & Poth, 2018), and data triangulation (Flick, 2018;
Liamputtong, 2020) to understand how tenants experienced their homes and the factors that
contributed to these experiences.
I begin this chapter by revisiting the research problem and the main themes from the
literature. I then summarise the theoretical contribution of this thesis, that being the
development of a framework for ontological security in community housing. The framework
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was used to guide the analysis for my empirical contributions to existing scholarship on
housing and home. I organise the empirical contributions in this chapter by the three research
sub-questions. Following this, I consider the implications of the research for the community
housing sector and then conclude by acknowledging the limitations of this study and making
suggestions for future research.
9.2 Community housing in Australia: Revisiting the research problem
Relevant to the study of contemporary community housing in Australia is the impact that the
residualisation of public housing has had on lower income households. The residualisation of
public housing, a process in place since the 1980s, has included disinvestment in the supply
and maintenance of public housing and a tightening in eligibility for those in greatest and
most urgent need (Clarke et al., 2022; O’Keefe, 2024; Pawson et al., 2020; Yates, 2013).
Since the 1990s, residualisation has resulted in public housing being stigmatised as places of
social problems and social exclusion (Arthurson, 2012; Clarke et al., 2022; O’Keefe, 2024).
Another consequence of residualisation includes lower income households that would
otherwise meet the income eligibility for public housing now having to secure
accommodation in an increasingly unaffordable private rental sector (PRS) (Davis & Engels,
2021; O’Keeffe, 2024). Additional changes in the PRS, such as higher income households
renting for longer periods and shortages in the supply and availability of private rental
properties set at prices affordable to low-middle income households, combined with
insufficient financial support from the government, have exacerbated the difficulty in
securing private rental dwellings for lower income households (Hulse et al., 2019; Morris,
2918; Yates, 2013). Together, the two outcomes have severely impacted the housing
experiences of low- and very-low-income households.
This study was situated within two contemporary diversification approaches used to deliver
social and affordable housing in ways that intend to address the social problems associated
with public housing and unaffordability in the PRS—growing the community housing sector
and delivering social housing through mixed-tenure developments. Both aim to deliver social
housing in more cost-effective ways and in ways that foster more positive outcomes for lower
income households (Flanagan, 2008; Pawson et al., 2020; Wood, 2003). This thesis has
contended with the latter by examining what value mixed-tenure community housing can be
to social and affordable housing tenants.
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Governments’ desire to grow the community housing sector is premised on the idea that
CHOs are better positioned to deliver social housing compared to the state. Governments
purport that CHOs are less bureaucratic than the state, are more financially sustainable
because they have access to more diverse funding streams, and can be more responsive to
tenant needs and so can deliver better tenant outcomes because they are often situated within
communities (Flanagan, 2008; Flanagan et al., 2018; Jacobs et al., 2004; Pawson et al., 2020;
Yates, 2013). Indeed, the community housing sector wants to extend its role as social
landlord and acknowledges its role in fostering tenant wellbeing outcomes (CHIA Vic, 2017).
Literature within the field of community housing has examined the capacity of CHOs to take
on the role of social landlord, and the associated ideological questions raised by the transfer
of responsibility from the state to CHOs (see, for example, Earley & Flaxman, 2013; Farrar et
al., 2003; Flanagan, 2008; Flanagan et al., 2020; Gilmour & Mulligan, 2012; Jacobs et al.,
2004; Pawson & Gilmour, 2010; Pawson et al., 2020), with less attention paid to how CHOs
can foster positive tenant outcomes.
Mixed-tenure housing is another approach used by governments to address the issues
associated with public housing. Mixed-tenure housing policy assumes that by mixing income
types, represented through different tenure groups, previously stigmatised areas will
experience improved neighbourhood resources and employment opportunities, and see a shift
in individual and community behaviour that more closely aligns with mainstream normative
ideals (Arthurson, 2012; Capp et al., 2022; Kearns & Mason, 2007; O’Keeffe, 2024).
Research in Australia and internationally has predominantly focused on the mix of private
residents with social housing tenants, finding that the intentions of mixed-tenure housing
have not been met (see Arthurson, 2012; Arthurson et al., 2015; Evans, 2009; Kearns &
Mason, 2007; Kleinhans, 2004; Parkinson et al., 2014; Shaw et al., 2013; Shaw & Hagemans,
2015; Wood, 2003; Ziersch & Arthurson, 2007). Instead, the research argues the approach
primarily benefits homeowners and property developers (Capp et al., 2022; Kelly & Porter,
2019; Parkinson et al., 2014; Shaw et al., 2013) without increasing the overall quantity of
social housing dwellings (Porter et al., 2023). Throughout this thesis I have examined an
emerging tenure diversification approach that has been missing in Australian research—the
mix of social and affordable housing tenants delivered by CHOs.
My analysis of diversification approaches identified a correlation between the intention of
these approaches to improve tenant experiences and the benefits associated with having a
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home, such as social inclusion and participation, enacting social relationships, physical and
emotional health benefits, and feelings of safety and security (Clapham, 2005, 2010;
Easthope, 2004; Kearns et al., 2000; Mallet, 2004; Mee, 2007, 2009; Saunders,1989). Having
a home has been shown to be beneficial for other tenure types, including homeowners,
private renters, social housing, and supported social housing (see Dupuis & Thorns, 1998;
Easthope, 2014; Kearns et al., 2002; Padgett, 2007; Henwood et al., 2018; Mee, 2007;
Saunders, 1989). Therefore, I have argued an examination into the concept of home within
the context of social and affordable mixed-tenure community housing is warranted to better
understand how tenants make meaning of their tenancy and the value they derive from it.
Indeed, while approaches to tenure diversification are an important topic for housing policy
and research, this was not the case for the tenant participants. Rather, tenant participant
accounts drew attention to the significant components of their housing that were best
understood using the concept of home.
9.3 Theoretical contributions
The central contribution of this thesis is that it broadens current understandings of home in
community housing. Home is made by the dweller interacting with the social and material
form of the dwelling in ways that create meaning that, in turn, conjure an emotional feeling of
home (Clapham, 2005; Easthope, 2004). Home provides a sense of comfort and safety, and a
place for self-expression and for relationships to be enacted (Clapham, 2005; Mallet, 2004).
Housing theorists have explained the meaning of home using Giddens’ concept of ontological
security (e.g., Dupuis & Thorns, 1998; Fitzpatrick & Watts, 2017; Hiscock et al., 2001;
Kearns et al., 2000; Mee, 2007; Padgett, 2007; Somerville, 1997; Stonehouse et al., 2021).
Giddens (1984, 1990) defines ontological security as having a sense of security derived from
trust in the predictability and constancy of the social and material world and one’s place
within that world. In contemporary society, the home is the primary locale for that sense of
security (Saunders, 1989). Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) work has been prominent for
operationalising the concept of ontological security within the housing field through their
development of a four-part framework that identifies the conditions of home. The framework
includes: 1) a constant social and material environment, 2) a place where daily routines can
be enacted, 3) a place where people feel in control and a place of privacy, and 4) a secure
base to develop identities. Dupuis and Thorns’ conditions of home have informed other
housing scholarship (for example, see Henwood et al., 2018; Mee, 2007; Mifflin & Wilton,
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2005; Padgett, 2007), but there has yet to be a robust application within community housing.
This thesis has built on and extends this theoretical work through providing insight into how
Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) conditions of home pertain to community housing, how tenants
and staff create and recreate these conditions, and what value the conditions are to
community housing tenants.
Through this work I have furthered understandings of ontological security by capturing the
temporal dimensions of home. Plage et al. (2023) argue that housing scholarship has placed
greater emphasis on the spatial dimensions of ontological security, but that temporal
exploration is also needed. My research did this by using Kearns et al.’s (2000) idea of
‘freedom from’ and ‘freedom to’. Kearns et al.’s (2000) idea of ‘freedoms’ sits within their
psychosocial concept of home. They use the notion of freedoms to explain the spatial benefits
of home. Home provides ‘freedom from’ outside surveillance that then provides the ‘freedom
to’ do what you want when you want at home. I have argued there is utility in applying and
expanding Kearns et al.’s theory temporally, as it explains how tenants’ past housing histories
and their past and current socioeconomic context inform how they make meaning of their
homes. Tenant participant experiences such as disability or family violence intersected with
social systems, such as an unaffordable housing market and insufficient welfare payments, to
create conditions of social and economic marginalisation. These contexts shaped, in part, how
tenant participants experienced specific tenure conditions that informed how they constructed
ideas of home. For example, tenure conditions provided freedom from past social risk and
housing insecurity that helped to imbue a sense of safety and security, and provided tenant
participants the freedom to care for themselves given economic restrictions, something they
had previously been unable to do. This adds to emerging temporal explorations of ontological
security (Mayock, 2023; Rosenburg et al., 2021; Stonehouse et al., 2021), and furthers
Dupuis and Thorn’s (1998) framework of ontological security within the context of
community housing by analysing how temporal factors inform the conditions of home.
By developing Giddens’ (1991) notion of adaptive reactions, this research has also
contributed theoretically to housing scholarship by providing insight into how tenants in
community housing respond to risks and threats to re-establish a sense of ontological
security. Adaptive reactions explain how people respond to risks to ontological security,
based on the premise that ontological security is an ongoing condition that we continuously
seek to re-establish when faced with risk (Giddens, 1991). Giddens notes that his work on
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adaptive reactions is preliminary and requires empirical development, which this research has
furthered. There has been limited application of adaptive reactions within housing research. A
notable exception is Power (2022), who examined how older, low-income women living in
insecure housing retain or restore a sense of ontological security. My research has added to
this by applying the concept of adaptive reaction to community housing, used as a starting
place to explore how tenant participants responded to risks and threats to their sense of
security. The findings indicated that tenant participants had social and emotional responses to
risk. Tenant participants responded with optimism and acceptance through emotional and
social detachment to regain a sense of control. They distanced themselves from stigma to
reconstruct identities, and they socially self-sanctioned to protect themselves from social
unpredictability. Tenant participants also practised ‘radical engagement’ (Giddens, 1991, p.
131), whereby they engaged with governing systems as an approach to re-establish a sense
ontological security, including engagement with Unison, the Tenants Union, the Victorian
Housing Registrar (VHR), and the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT). My
application of Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) framework of ontological security, therefore, has
also uncovered the conditions of home that tenant participants sought to re-establish and how
they sought to do this. By bringing together these different theories, I have developed a
comprehensive and applicable framework of ontological security for community housing (see
Figure 1 in Chapter Three).
9.4 Empirical contributions
9.4.1 Four experiences of home in community housing
The overarching research question for this study asked: how do social and affordable
community housing tenants construct their notion of home? Three sub-questions were
posed to assist with answering this question. The first sub-question asked: how do social and
affordable housing tenants experience their homes? While the question provided scope to
compare and contrast the experiences of home between the two tenure groups, I have argued
that their experiences of home were similar. The experiences of home by both tenure groups
can be understood as four distinct components, delineated by how they experienced Dupuis
and Thorns’ (1998) conditions of home.
The first component was Imagining home, marked by passive experiences of ontological
security, whereby past experiences of insecurity, unpredictability, and social risk were
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replaced with constancy, predictability, and a sense of security. Ongoing tenure provided
freedom from housing insecurity, while inclusion of utilities in rent provided freedom from
housing unaffordability whereby tenant participants could afford basic care resources such as
using heating and cooling. Additionally, living alone in self-sufficient apartments provided
tenant participants with privacy and autonomy over their dwelling, enabling freedom from
past social risks to their possessions and personhood. This more passive experience placed
emphasis on the ‘being’ in Giddens’ (1984, 1991) definition of ontological security, building
on housing scholarship that to date has focused more on active practices. Here, tenure
conditions fostered a feeling of security, constancy, and comfort, rather than the actions and
interactions of the tenant participants.
The second component was Making and Maintaining home and included the active
homemaking practices that made and maintained a sense of ontological security. Tenant
participants expressed a sense of control and privacy, and constancy in their social and
material environments. Proximity of the housing sites to neighbourhood amenities combined
with the constancy of the dwelling enabled daily routines to be established and maintained so
that tenant participants could, for example, care for their physical and mental health, and care
for local wildlife. Further, a sense of constancy and autonomy over their dwelling provided
the freedom for tenant participants to construct their identities through personalising the
space. The freedom to enact relationships of choice at home within existing social networks
allowed for family-like routines with pets, and enabled tenant participants to engage in
neighbouring practices to meet social, material, and emotional needs. Examining active
practices applied within the context of mixed-tenure community housing has contributed to
scholarship that has examined active practices in other contexts, including homelessness,
supported housing, social housing, private rental, and home ownership (Aplin et al., 2020;
Baker, 2013; Chan, 2020; Clapham, 2005; McCarty, 2020; Nasreen & Ruming, 2021; Van
Lanen, 2022; Watt, 2021).
The third component was Unmaking home, where a sense of ontological security was
diminished and disrupted by tenant participants’ lack of control and privacy, by home
conflicting with tenant participant identities, and by tenant participants feeling unsafe. At
North-East Burb, the unmaking of home consisted of intrusions from neighbours into the
private space—neighbours’ possessions and noise from apartments above intruded into the
dwellings below. A lack of control and privacy, and a perceived inability to rectify the
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situation, exacerbated the unmaking of home. At North-West Burb, home was unmade by
visitor intrusions into the housing site and by material disorder caused through rubbish and
property damage from neighbours and their visitors. Additionally, home was socially unmade
by racism and social disorder from visitors taking over the shared space and engaging in
problematic behaviour such as assaulting tenants, drug dealing, and unwelcome and
concerning interactions with children. Tenant participants perceived Unison as ultimately
responsible for the material and social disruptions to home, and so the perception that Unison
was negligent in addressing these issues worsened the unmaking of home. I have provided
new insight into factors that unmake home (Cheshire et al., 2021; Clare et al., 2023; Nasreen
& Ruming, 2021; Van Lanen, 2022) by examining how particular conditions of home were
disrupted or diminished to undermine a sense of ontological security. For example, it was not
just that the poor condition of the housing site unmade home, but that the poor condition
highlighted how little control tenant participants had over their home, and that these poor
conditions conflicted with their identities and normative ideas (for example, about
cleanliness).
The fourth component was Remaking home, where tenant participants responded to the
unmaking of their homes with practices to regain a sense of control, to reconstruct identities,
and to feel a sense of safety. Tenant participants engaged in social and emotional practices—
they emotionally and socially detached themselves from neighbours to regain control, used
optimism by drawing on the positive aspects of their situations, distanced themselves to
overcome living in stigmatised areas, and socially self-sanctioned from neighbours with
whom they had had conflict to restore a sense of predictability and safety in their social
environment. These social and emotional practices remade a less than ideal, but nevertheless
more manageable, version of home. Tenant participants also used ‘radical engagement’ by
appealing to Unison to address the disruptions to their homes, followed by reporting Unison
to external organisations such as VCAT and the Tenants Union. When successful, this
practice remade an uncompromised and thus fuller sense of home. This has extended
Giddens’ (1991) concept of adaptive reactions and his premise that ontological security is an
ongoing endeavour within the context of community housing, and builds on limited empirical
data (Power, 2022) about how tenants respond to experiences of ontological insecurity.
Experiences of home were dynamic and contradictory—home was simultaneously imagined,
made, unmade, and remade as ongoing processes. Identifying the four components of home
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and their corresponding conditions has extended housing and home scholarship that often
constructs home as a dichotomy of homemaking and unmaking (for example, Mee, 2007;
Nasreen & Ruming, 2021; Van Lanen, 2022).
9.4.2 The value of home in community housing
The second research sub-question asked: what value do social and affordable housing tenants
assign to these experiences of home? I have argued that tenant participants valued their home
for how it made them feel and for what it enabled them to do, reflecting understandings of
ontological security as an emotional phenomenon that provides the basis for participation in
daily life (Giddens, 1984, 1991; Henwood et al., 2018; Padgett, 2007). As with the previous
sub-question, both social and affordable housing tenant participants valued their home in
similar ways. Drawing on Dupuis and Thorns’ (1998) conditions of home, I identified the
specific markers of home that tenant participants valued and why.
Having a constant and predictable social and material environment contributed to home being
a refuge, and a place of comfort, mental ease, as well as offering a site to feel gratitude and
safety. Constancy and predictability, along with a sense of control, allowed for tenant
participants to personalise their space to reflect themselves, and this further enhanced their
sense of comfort and refuge. Constancy and predictability also provided the platform to
establish routines within the neighbourhood that supported family life, to care for health
needs, and contributed to a sense of belonging. In contrast, social unpredictability unmade
home by diminishing tenant participants’ trust in the social environment and limited
interactions with neighbours.
Having control over the social and material environment enabled tenant participants to
engage in relationships of choice, and fostered a sense of pride, trust, and security that
enabled participation outside of the home. Conversely, having diminished or no control over
the social and material environments contributed to tenant participants feeling worthless,
mocked, unsafe, isolated, and having a sense of non-belonging. These findings have
contributed to a growing body of research that examines how tenure conditions inform how
people value and make meaning of their homes (Aplin et al., 2020; Chan, 2020, Easthope,
2014; Mee, 2007; Parsell, 2012) and why achieving and maintaining a sense of ontological
security is important.
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9.4.3 Factors informing home in community housing
The third research sub-question was: what factors facilitate, inhibit, and/or contribute to
these experiences of home? Experiences of home, and the value tenant participants assigned
to them, were shaped by multiple intersecting factors. While the mix of tenure types is often
of interest to housing policy and research, significantly, this was not important to tenant
participants in shaping their experiences of home. Although some of the factors that informed
the making or unmaking of home may be associated more strongly with one tenure group
compared to the other (for example, stigma that is commonly tied to social housing tenants),
tenant participant accounts illustrated the need to apply more nuance when examining tenant
experiences. Indeed, as Dupuis and Thorns (1998) contend, meanings of home are context
specific, and my research findings highlighted how the context of social and affordable
community housing tenants informed tenant participants’ construction of home.
A key finding was how experiences of home were relative to tenant participants’ past and
current socioeconomic contexts. These included tenant participants’ housing histories,
experiences of family violence, and disability and chronic illness that limited their capacity to
engage in the labour market. These factors, combined with welfare payments below the
Australian poverty line (Davidson et al., 2020) and an unaffordable private housing market,
shaped experiences of home and why it was valued. While there were differences in tenant
participants’ histories and social contexts, the economic impacts were similar—both social
and affordable tenant participants shared economic marginalisation that informed how they
understood the benefits of their community housing dwellings. Further, this contextualised
remaking home practices. The necessity to remake home was shaped by limited capacity for
upward mobility. Previous research has analysed how tenant histories inform homemaking in
supported housing (Padgett, 2007), how past experiences of insecurity continue through
housing pathways (Mayock, 2023; Rosenburg et al., 2021; Stonehouse et al., 2021), and how
dwellers’ current context informs experiences of home (Mee 2009; Morris, 2009, 2018;
Nasreen & Ruming, 2021; Power, 2022; Van Lanen, 2022). My findings have added to this
by examining how both past and current socioeconomic context inform meanings of home
within community housing and have shown that this context was similar for both social and
affordable tenant participants.
Neighbours and the neighbourhood were important factors in shaping the experiences of
home. Forming connections with neighbours who shared a similar social and economic
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position was a source of mutual assistance, security, comfort, and belonging. In contrast,
living alongside people with different social norms and ideas of what was considered
appropriate behaviour threatened identity construction, and diminished a sense of control and
a feeling of safety. Neighbourhoods were important in establishing routines through which
tenant participants could look after their health needs and practise family life. Here, living in
neighbourhoods with the necessary amenities that were within walking distance from the
housing site supported this. While previous studies have researched how interactions with the
neighbourhood and neighbours align with mixed-tenure policy objectives (Arthurson, 2012;
Arthurson et al., 2015; Evans, 2009; Jama & Shaw, 2017; Kleinhans, 2004; Shaw et al.,
2013; Shaw & Hagemans, 2015; Wood, 2003; Ziersch & Arthurson, 2007), how neighbours
and neighbourhoods in social housing foster community (Morris, 2019; Tually et al., 2020),
and how neighbours unmake home in social housing (Cheshire et al., 2021), my findings
have provided a focused analysis on how both neighbours and neighbourhood can facilitate
or inhibit home within social and affordable mixed-tenure community housing. Neighbours
provided valued social, emotional, and material support that fostered a sense of predictability,
connection, and belonging, and proximity to neighbourhood amenities enabled tenant
participants to care for themselves and enact family life. Conversely, and often
simultaneously, the actions of other neighbours and their visitors were a source of risk that
made home feel unsafe and a place that conflicted with tenant participants’ identities, while
stigma attached to the neighbours and neighbourhood also conflicted with tenant participants’
identity construction.
Housing governance was also integral to how home was experienced. Unison was co-
producer of both ontological security and insecurity. Tenancy conditions such as ongoing
leases and affordable rent that included utilities provided constant, predictable, and secure
home conditions. Relational practices, either by place-managers or Unison’s local external
service providers, and place-manager accessibility such as being on site and responsive to
tenants helped to sustain tenancies and to develop a connection and sense of belonging at
home. However, for some tenant participants, a lack of responsiveness to disruptions to
home, including social risk at the housing site or poor site maintenance, exacerbated their
diminished sense of control, contributing to a sense of ontological insecurity. Further,
inconsistent staff resourcing across the housing sites, and differences in place-manager
perceptions in how to use tenancy management policies and the efficacy of VCAT to resolve
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issues, meant the degree to which Unison co-produced ontological security or insecurity may
have been site and place-manager specific. Housing governance also included consideration
for the design of the built environment. North-East Burb was designed in a way that
minimised permeability, with a single, secure entry point. Conversely, North-West Burb had
multiple entry points and was easily intruded upon, and this was associated with disruptions
to the housing site and feelings of insecurity. These findings have added to emerging
scholarship about how housing organisations can be co-producers of ontological security
(Plage et al., 2023), and provided insight into the practices CHOs can use to foster home
conditions, building on existing research that has primarily focused on tenancy sustainment
or community development (Boland et al., 2018; Habibis et al., 2007; Hickman et al., 2023;
Johnson et al., 2024; Parsell et al., 2022; Tually et al., 2020).
9.5 Research implications for the community housing sector
This research has implications for the community housing sector, particularly as it looks to
enhance its role as social landlord (CHIA Vic, 2017). The findings have affirmed the need for
secure, affordable, and appropriate housing. As such, the research supports the ongoing call
for greater investment in social and affordable housing to meet the demands caused by a
growing waitlist and housing affordability stress. To support this, future planning might
consider expanding the social and affordable mixed-tenure model as an alternative to the
predominant model pursued by governments that consists of private housing mixed with
social housing. The social and affordable mixed-tenure model meets the housing needs of two
lower income groups, compared to the private and social mixed-tenure renewal projects that
only offer a negligible uplift in social housing dwellings (Porter et al., 2023). Additionally,
my findings have shown the importance of living next door to people who share a similar
socioeconomic position as a source of social, emotional, and material support. This support
has not been found when private housing is mixed with social housing, where private
residents commonly outnumber social housing tenants by two to one (Porter et al., 2023) and
where acts of informal support are not reported between tenure types (Arthurson et al., 2015;
Evans, 2009; Kleinhans, 2004; Shaw et al., 2013; Ziersch & Arthurson, 2007).
In this work I have highlighted the need for both social and affordable tenure conditions to be
ongoing. Permanency plays an important role in offering tenants a sense of security. Yet
governments and the community housing sector promote tenant movement through the social
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housing system into the private market (CHIA Vic, 2017; Flanagan et al., 2019). This is at
odds with how tenants value their social and affordable homes. Indeed, threats to the
permanency of social housing can be a cause of ontological insecurity (Fitzpatrick & Watts,
2017). The interaction between an unaffordable and insecure private housing market, a
residualised social housing population where many tenants have permanent disabilities or
complex health and support needs that limit their employment capacity, and stagnated
welfare payments that have not kept pace with the cost of living make it difficult for tenants
to transition into private housing (Flanagan et al., 2019; O’Keefe, 2024; Pawson et al., 2020).
If moving tenants through housing tenures is desired, the community housing sector might
consider leveraging its position to advocate for structural changes, such as government
providing more meaningful financial support through income support and safety nets
(Flanagan et al., 2019) to make accessing private housing more possible while ensuring
tenure conditions remain ongoing.
Consideration of the design and quality of the built environment may help to address social
issues commonly reported at social housing sites. One of the key reasons for mixed-tenure
redevelopment is to address the concentration of social issues found in social housing, but
this rationale focuses mainly on the individualising of tenant problems (Arthurson, 2012;
O’Keefe, 2024). My findings offer insight into alternative explanations, including thoughts
for reducing the connectivity of housing sites with the broader neighbourhood to limit
through-movement, and reducing the permeability of the housing sites by non-residents
(Armitage, 2011). Further, consideration is needed for how to design housing sites in ways
that minimise noise, conflict, and disputes (Cheshire & Buglar, 2016). Additionally,
consideration for the built environment can incorporate co-design with tenants. Co-design is
an emerging field within social housing (Martin et al., 2022) as well as in other human
services such as disability housing and support (Jamwal et al., 2025; Tucker et al., 2022),
because the process can be useful in ensuring that housing is tailored to meet the needs of the
end-user (Szebeko & Tan, 2010; Sanders & Stappers, 2012). Housing sites that realise these
design ideas may help reduce unwanted visitors and disturbances to the social and material
environments and reduce disruptions to privacy and predictability. Such reductions can make
housing sites feel safer, and in turn, better able to facilitate a sense of ontological security.
An important way that the community housing sector can facilitate the positive conditions of
home is by resourcing on-site housing governance. My findings promote the need for housing
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sites to be defended, that is, to have visible ownership (Armitage, 2011; Colquhoun, 2004;
Newman, 1973; Richardson, 2018). When housing sites are socially or materially disrupted,
by, for example, property damage, an immediate and continuous response is required to show
ownership and prevent further disruptions (Colquhoun, 2004; Richardson, 2018). My
findings supported those of previous research in identifying on-site housing governance as
best able to fulfil this role (Colquhoun, 2004; Richardson, 2018). The benefits of this are
twofold: immediate and constant responses might enhance tenants’ sense of ontological
security and may prevent further damage, which has cost-saving benefits to the organisation.
On-site housing governance can also promote meaningful tenant engagement. Supporting the
relationship between tenants and the organisation is important for sustaining tenancies and
facilitating homes (Mee, 2009; Parsell et al., 2022). Resourcing on-site housing governance
involves ensuring place-managers have capacity for relational work and are equipped to
engage in this work through policies and access to necessary mechanisms (Flanagan et al.,
2019; Lewis, 2024; Mee, 2009). Resourcing can also include ensuring there are robust
arrangements with local external service providers that are systemic and reliable, rather than
dependent on individual staff and relationships. Further, these resources need to be consistent
across the sector to ensure all tenants have access to the conditions that facilitate home.
9.6 Future directions
This study included only two mixed-tenure housing sites in Melbourne, Victoria. This was
intentional so as to provide an in-depth examination of tenant experiences at similar but
separate sites; however, it limits the application across other geographical locations. Future
research could be broadened to include a range of social housing sites, such as high-rise sites
or sites that target specific population groups like older people or women-only sites. It could
also incorporate regional areas. To ensure all tenants have the chance to experience
ontological security, it is necessary to understand how the material and social environments
in regional areas inform experiences of home where neighbourhood amenities may vary, and
the logistics of providing on-site housing governance may differ.
Future research could also examine the experiences of affordable housing tenants in more
detail. My research has provided insight into how affordable housing tenants experience
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home, finding that they share similar social and economic circumstances as social housing
tenants, and so value their homes in similar ways. Affordable tenancies will make up 25% (or
2,400 dwellings) of the Victorian Big Housing Build Program (AHURI, 2020), while just
under 480,000 households are living in housing affordability stress (AHURI, 2023). Given
this, there is a need to better understand this tenant group, their housing pathways, and ways
to support their housing futures.
Future research could consider applying and testing the framework of ontological security
developed in this study to other tenure types and housing arrangements where there are
shared characteristics, such as density levels and shared or external oversight. For example,
the framework may apply to homeowners living in medium to high density apartments where
there are collective arrangements via owner’s corporation to manage (Liu et al., 2018; Yip &
Forrest, 2002) or to private renters, particularly those who reside in jurisdictions where
tenancy legislation primarily favours the rights of the landlord over tenants (Easthope, 2014;
O’Keeffe, 2020). This is particularly relevant within Australian cities, where housing is
increasingly shifting from single unit dwellings to medium to high density apartment
buildings with collective oversight arrangements (Easthope et al., 2020; Liu et al., 2018), and
where more people are living in private rental properties and living there for longer periods of
time (AIHW, 2024b; Hulse et al., 2019; Reynolds et al., 2024). The framework developed in
this thesis may offer an analytical foundation for future research to examine the nuances of
homemaking and ontological security, and to better understand the housing experiences of
these growing cohorts.
In this thesis I have raised the conflict of how maintaining ontological security for one person
may inadvertently cause ontological insecurity for another. In some cases, this was due to
differences in neighbourly norms that might be addressed through more considered building
design, better quality buildings, and more sensitive allocations (Cheshire & Bulgar, 2016). In
other cases, both tenants and staff participants raised the issue of more extreme and/or illegal
behaviours that unmade home for others. Staff highlighted the challenge in reducing the
negative impact on the housing site and tenants’ sense of ontological security. How to best
support tenants in effective ways that could address this is complex, and it was beyond the
scope of this thesis to provide solutions for this; however, integrated support models in
supported housing that combine psychosocial support with housing provision show
promising outcomes (see Henwood et al., 2018; Kertesz & Johnson, 2017; Padgett, 2007;
209
Padgett et al., 2015; Parsell et al., 2022). Future research on engagement and support
approaches within a Victorian context could assist housing providers to better facilitate the
conditions from which ontological security can emerge and be maintained.
9.7 Conclusion
Overall, this thesis has critically examined what mixed-tenure community housing can offer
social and affordable housing tenants. Through the explorative nature of the qualitative
multimethod research design, I found that the social and affordable tenure mix approach
could offer tenants a place to make home and feel a sense of ontological security that
contributed to important social, emotional, and material benefits. The research also examined
considerable threats to tenants’ homes in the social and material environments, which
undermined and diminished their sense of ontological security. Tenant participants engaged
in practices to mitigate these threats in the context of limited options to move elsewhere, and
this made a compromised, but still accepted, sense of home. My analysis identified factors
that contributed to these experiences that may be of interest to the community housing sector,
including consideration for tenure conditions, the built environment, and the role of CHOs as
a co-producer of ontological security and insecurity. The concluding position of this thesis is
that the social and affordable mixed-tenure approach to delivering community housing has
the potential to address the housing needs of two vulnerable tenure groups and can garner
desirable outcomes. However, housing governance needs to consider how the built
environment and on-site resourcing can mitigate social and material disruptions to
community housing sites. Doing so can facilitate the social and material conditions that may
contribute to feeling a sense of ontological security.
210
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Appendix A: Staff participant information and consent form
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Appendix B: Place-manager focus group guide
Welcome and thanks
Acknowledgement of Country
Social wellbeing is about the quality of relationships that someone has with others,
their neighbourhood and their community. Today I’m going to be asking you some
questions around this concept. First, we’ll focus on the idea of community, and
then go on to discuss your roles as place-managers, your interactions with
tenants and your observations in this role.
Opening
question
Tell us your name, what place or places you manage?
Unison’s website, documents (including strategic plan, annual report, practice framework) emphases that Unison is building
thriving communities. A repeated description used is ‘vibrant, thriving, and sustainable communities’.
As staff, what does it mean to you?
Consider: Unison sites and the broader neighbourhood.
Prob: Can you give examples of how this works/what this looks
like on your sites?
Different community activities and initiatives are described in the annual report
and strategic plan.
How does Unison foster investment from the tenants in the
activities?
Prob: How are these activities developed? Who is involved in the
process? How and why are they involved?
What value do you think the activities bring to:
• the tenant
• the community
• Unison
• The neighbourhood
How do the Unison communities engage with the broader
neighbourhood?
If not already covered: What then, does community participation
look like? Examples?
Kensington is promoted by Unison as being the flagship mixed-tenure community,
with a large estate, diverse household types, vegetable garden projects, and other
community activities.
251
How does this model translate to sites that do not have the same
physical space? I.e., sites that do not have room for a garden, space
for community meals, high enough resident numbers that there is
enough shared interest to run a program.
Probs:
Can you give examples of how the physical space enhances a sense
of community OR the community you have described?
Can you give examples of how the physical space works against a
sense of community OR the community you have described?
Have you noticed any differences between the different
demographics of tenants accessing the physical space? I.e., social or
affordable tenancies, different ages, genders, different ethnicities,
different biographies/ complexities – why?
How do you manage different types of inequality in relation to
access to the space? Again, thinking about age, race, gender,
dis/ability, sexuality
Unison promote mixed tenure as being valuable to communities.
How is tenure mix managed? E.g., Are there conscious decisions
made to mix the tenants in particular ways? If so, how are these
decisions made?
What do you see as the benefits of tenure mix?
What do you see as the challenges of tenure mix?
What other opportunities are there for tenants to build community with one
another, or to self-organise?
How would you describe your role as place-managers?
How does it differ from a traditional landlord role?
Prob: Does the place-manager role influence the quality of
relationships tenants have with one another, with Unison, and/or the
broader neighbourhood? How?
From what you’ve said OR From reading the policies and procedures it seems like
place-managers have lots of different responsibilities and tasks, some that are
a support role, at other times the role seems more administrative.
252
Have there been times when having the different roles have been
helpful? As in, one role has enhanced or supported another role?
Have there been times when the tasks or responsibilities been
hindered or been compromised as a result of another task or
responsibility?
Prob example: how do tenants respond to support that is offered from
the same staff member that is issuing a notice or vacate or a breach of
behaviour?
Follow up: If so, how do you manage that conflict?
Follow up: Have you noticed any differences in the work that you do
between different demographics of tenants? I.e., social or affordable
tenancies, different ages, different ethnicities, different biographies/
complexities
I want to focus the work you do with tenants who may have received a NTV, a
behaviour breach, or who might have an anti-social behaviour plan.
Have you noticed any changes in how tenants engage with Unison
or the community once they have received something like a breach
or NTV?
What did their engagement look like before? After?
Follow up: have you observed a difference between different
demographics of tenants? I.e., social or affordable tenancies, different
ages, different ethnicities, different biographies/ complexities
Welfare checks are a role beyond the traditional landlord and are an example of
when the place-manager plays a more supportive role.
Have you observed a difference between demographic groups in:
a) the need to conduct checks, and
b) how you’re received by the tenant when you do?
What other ways is the relationship between tenants and between
tenants and Unison supported?
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Appendix C: Executive focus group guide
‘Vibrant communities’:
Unison’s mission is to create vibrant, sustainable communities.
The Housing Registrar Regulatory framework states that registered agencies, such as
Unison, need to contribute towards socially inclusive community (p. 7) and that
community engagement is a performance standard evidenced through policies, procedures,
and demonstrated service deliverables, such as events, activities, and fewer tenant and
neighbour complaints (p. 12).
• How does this regulatory framework (or other mandates) shape Unison’s approach to creating communities?
• How do you approach the performance standard? I.e., what types of things do you include in the demonstrated
service deliverables? Is it organisation wide, or site specific?
• How does Unison manage or approach site differences, including physical, social, and demographic differences,
and the ability to realise Unison’s mission organisation wide?
• Unison’s mission and the regulatory framework are from the position that housing providers have a responsibility to
govern community engagement – why is this role important? Who benefits and how? What are challenges?
Social-affordable mix:
Many of Unison’s multi dwelling sites are made up of social-affordable tenure mix
• Why does Unison use this model of tenancy mix as opposed to the more common social-private mix?
• Have you considered using the social-private model? Why/why not?
• What are the social and financial benefits of the social-affordable model to Unison?
• What are the social and financial challenges of the social-affordable model to Unison?
• What impact has the change in affordable income bracket had on the model?
Tenancy support:
Formal support can play a key role to individual tenancies and the larger community. At
Unison, generally place-managers provide tenancy support and make referrals for other
social support to the local support partner, such as MOSS.
• Have you considered bringing the more intensive social support in-house?
• What are the benefits and challenges to the current model?
• There is variance between the support provided across the different mixed-tenure sites. How much influence does
Unison have over the level and quantity of support provided by support partners across the different housing sites?
• How does Unison manage the different levels of support from the support partners?
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Appendix D: Tenant participant information and consent form
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256
257
Appendix E: Observational fieldnote template
Site
Date and time
Observations
People
Built space
Natural environment
Sounds
Interactions
Tenants
Staff
Other
Other
Subjective notes
Closure/ Follow up tasks
258
Appendix F: Photo information sheet
259
260
Appendix G: Tenant interview guide
Questions about you: 30MIN
What does an average day look like for you?
Can you describe…?
What is important to you about living here?
Why are these things important?
What enables this? What inhibits this?
• Unison?
• Other tenants?
• Any Other factors?
Do you feel you’re able to express and/or
participate in the following here:
a) your religion or spirituality, and
b) social or community activities, and cultural
practices that are important to you?
What does that look like?
What enables this? What inhibits this?
• Unison?
• Other tenants?
• Any Other factors?
How has living here helped or not helped you
to do or change the things you want to in your
life?
Can you describe what has or hasn’t
changed*?
What has helped or not helped?
Who has supported you with this?
Questions about your neighbours: 30 MIN
Do you get along with your neighbours?
What do your interactions look like?
What do you have in common with your
neighbours?
What things do you do together?
Can you describe…?
How is *activity* organised or planned?
Do you feel you can trust your neighbours?
What makes you feel that way?
How does this effect the way you live here?
Can you think of an example?
What do you appreciate about your
neighbours or community?
What don’t you appreciate?
Again, how does this effect the way you
live here?
Can you think of an example?
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Questions about your neighbourhood: 30MIN
What’s important to have close to home?
What’s important to have in the
neighbourhood?
Why are these things important to you?
Do you spend much time in the
neighbourhood?
What do you like or dislike about it?
What things do you do in your
neighbourhood? What do you do elsewhere?
Why/ Why not?
How does it affect you? Can you think of an
example?
What makes you feel like an active member
of your neighbourhood or community?
What has helped or not helped this?
What does/would this look like? Can you
describe….?
How has this/could this come about?
Organising/planning?
Who?
Anything else before we end the interview?
How was the interview experience?
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Appendix H: Ethics approval
263
264
Appendix I: Anti-social behaviours and breaching policy
265
266
267
Appendix J: Anti-social behaviours and breaching procedure
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
Appendix K: Allocation policy
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