How to talk about homes

Natalie Tate introduces a new framing strategy for homes that supports campaigners and communicators make the most of their voice when talking to the public.

 

People in the UK recognise the housing crisis; they can see there’s unequal access to homes and that poor quality exists. Yet one of the big challenges we face when communicating is that people are unclear on how these problems have come about and therefore they can’t picture how, or even if, they could be fixed.

 

To persuade our audiences that everyone can and should have a decent, affordable home means shifting the dominant public mindset away from housing as a consumer good. We need to show how our homes are fundamental to our quality of life.

 

This is where the need for effective framing comes in. The Nationwide Foundation and JRF have worked in partnership with FrameWorks UK to discover the best ways to frame communications about homes, in a way that diminishes fatalism, builds understanding and activates a ‘can-do’ attitude. By using the right ideas and communication principles, we can help people to believe that change is possible and worth calling for.

 

Together, we’ve launched a toolkit that offers guidance to anyone who writes and talks about homes.

 

In summary, the five recommendations are:

·        Talk about homes as a source of health and wellbeing to build understanding of why access to decent and affordable homes matters.

·        Describe homes as a foundation for our lives, to provide a helpful mental image that shows how decent, affordable homes should be an essential priority.

·        Invoke people’s sense of moral responsibility to build the case for making decent and affordable housing available to everyone. This builds a sense of collective obligation and when paired with a systemic solution, steers thinking away from individualism or fatalism.

·        Combine a critical tone with explanations of systemic solutions to build a sense of urgency and efficacy. We should focus in on a specific part of the housing crisis, explaining which policies can address these problems and how they can help.

·        Put individual stories in context to bring systemic changes to the housing system to life. We need to be illustrating how inadequate policies or a lack of action have negatively affected people and how positive policies have – or could have – a beneficial impact.

 

To hear more, come along to our Masterclass session at Housing 2023 on Tuesday 27 June.

 

Natalie Tate is the project lead for Talking about Housing project, co-funded by Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Nationwide Foundation, and delivered in partnership with FrameWorks UK.