The barriers faced by black renters in the north east of England
Jessica Nsana is a recent graduate from the University of Birmingham’s School of Social Policy, who received the Jane Slowey Memorial Bursary from Commonweal in her final year.
My name is Jessica, and I am a very grateful recipient of the Jane Slowey Memorial Bursary for the academic year 2023/24. Receiving this Bursary from Commonweal Housing enabled me to focus on completing my ambitious dissertation. It also helped to limit the amount of part-time work I had to do alongside my studies, allowing me to complete such a large project successfully.
My dissertation question was: ‘What are the short and long-term outcomes across education, employment and health for black renters in the north east of England?’. To answer this, I conducted 12 semi-structured interviews over Microsoft Teams and Zoom.
During the interviews, I asked individuals about their experiences having grown up in the north east, the barriers they felt hindered them as well as the opportunities available to them.
The main findings from my dissertation were the following:
1. Black people face barriers to accessing quality education due to the area they live in; however, this does not limit their access to higher education. Most of the individuals I interviewed had university degrees and experienced encouragement from their families to attend university despite wider barriers.
2. Black renters in the north east felt as though they needed to relocate to diverse areas in the south of England to access employment opportunities. Interviewees discussed how they believed racism and discrimination limited their access to job opportunities due to a lack of diversity in the region, describing feeling they were viewed as less favourable in comparison to other candidates.
3. Black renters felt that their concerns regarding the conditions of their properties were often overlooked because they did not always know how to exercise their rights. In particular, language barriers were a key challenge participants I interviewed faced, and they received limited support to understand their rights.
Key recommendations from my research are:
1. To improve outcomes for black renters there needs to be increased regulation within the rented sector.
2. The Social Housing Regulation Act 2023 is a promising step forward to a more regulated rental housing market.
Through my dissertation, I discovered many challenges black renters in the north east face. From these challenges, I identified a lack of regulation as the main underlying cause. Subsequently, if the sector is more regulated, there will be a level of responsibility placed upon landlords to ensure a minimum standard is met.
The Social Housing Regulation Act 2023 seeks to provide additional regulation within rented housing; however, it is not yet possible to measure its success. Despite this, I remain optimistic about the Act and the extent to which it will be successful in providing regulation.
My next steps?
In July, I will join the Frontline programme to complete a master’s degree in social work and train as a social worker. I hope that my master’s will serve as a stepping stone for me to do more research in the future, as I have thoroughly enjoyed completing my dissertation. I would love to research how other factors, in addition to and alongside race, can influence housing experience and outcomes