The campaign group Stop Social Housing Stigma (SSHS) recently launched their flagship journey planner, a comprehensive guide to help residents and landlords fight social housing stigma together.
The journey planner was unveiled on May 19, 2025, during a parliamentary event hosted by MP Ben Coleman, drawing attention from across the housing sector and government.
The negative stigma faced by social housing tenants has been an issue for some time, but the Grenfell disaster in 2017 brought the negative attitudes tenants face into the spotlight, and spurred on a wave of counter-movements and initiatives such as SSHS.
Since then SSHS has undergone extensive work in hearing from both landlords and residents themselves about the negative stigma surrounding social housing, and what can be one to fight it. This has led to the creation of the journey planner unveiled in parliament, which can be downloaded at their website.
The Journey Planner was developed in collaboration with leading academic and industry bodies including Durham University, Sheffield Hallam University, the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH), TPAS, and YD Consultants. Its purpose is to directly address the stigma that many social housing tenants face, providing a clear roadmap for organizations to meet the new Consumer Regulatory Standards that require fairness and respect in tenant relations.
Before its public launch, the Journey Planner was piloted by eleven housing providers—including both local authorities and housing associations. These “Pioneer Travellers” tested the planner’s application in real-world settings, helping refine its content and ensuring it could deliver meaningful change.
Organizations such as L&Q and Greatwell Homes have publicly committed to using the planner. Their endorsement reflects growing recognition across the sector that combating stigma isn’t just a moral imperative—it’s a necessary step towards rebuilding trust and delivering better housing outcomes.
The stigma surrounding social housing in our country runs deep, and calls back to embedded class issues which have been prevalent throughout British history. Although the Journey Planner unveiled by SSHS is unlikely to eradicate these systemic issues, it does push the conversation forwards in fostering meaningful and decisive action. In order to truly combat these types of stigma, there needs to be a joint effort from both residents and landlords to put these issues to the front of the public eye, and understand how these attitudes are formed and what can be done to break them down.
