Building a home: How research brought Shelter and its supporters together

The UK’s housing crisis was a common refrain in this year’s general election, and relatively undisputed. From the death of Awaab Ishak in 2020, which caused government to re-look at the laws around mould in rented accommodation, to the large homeless population across the UK, as well as poor-quality housing and a lack of homes, tackling the crisis is a core issue for British society. 

Housing charity Shelter has been at the forefront of the fight for better housing since 1966, and the housing crisis of the past decade underlines the importance of its work. The charity has been a prominent campaigner for improved standards and better and more plentiful social housing. But, as with every charity, it is dependent on the work of its staff, supporters, volunteers and donors to get to grips with its mission. 

Shelter was keen to get a better understanding of how the wider public and its supporters viewed the charity and how much they understood of the causes of and solutions for Britain’s housing crisis. In 2019, the charity employed Eden Stanley, a research agency specialising in the voluntary sector, to lead work on a supporter segmentation. The relationship blossomed into a bigger project starting in November 2023, using quantitative and qualitative research, video ethnography and a co-creation workshop to get under the skin of the charity’s target audiences and examine their attitudes to the housing crisis. 

Opening a door 
“At the time [in 2019 ], we knew quite a lot about who our audiences were in terms of their demographics, but we didn’t have a lot of information about their attitudes and values,” says Emma Heath, head of brand, planning, insight and evaluation at Shelter. “We also didn’t have a huge idea about what our potential reach and market was.  

“We wanted to do a whole market segmentation focusing on attitudes and values, and really get to know what motivates people to engage with our cause and to want to support Shelter.”  

In the five years since 2019, a lot has happened in the UK housing market, as well as significant changes in government and the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic particularly drew attention to the housing crisis, Heath says, and the problems evident then have been drawn into sharp relief during the cost-of-living crisis that followed. 

“During the pandemic and multiple lockdowns, people thought more about home and what home means. They appreciated what they have and became more aware of what other people don’t have,” Heath explains. 

“People became closer to their community in that time – they thought more about their community and where they are based, rather than where they worked or went on holiday. With the cost-of-living crisis, the squeeze on incomes has exacerbated affordability issues. With all of that we are seeing, we thought it would be a good time to update our understanding of what our audiences think and feel.”  

Pulling up the rug 
Eden Stanley wanted to use a mix of research methods to better understand the views of Shelter’s supporters and the wider attitudes towards the housing crisis in the UK. The project began with focus groups, with 36 people participating, followed by a two-week ethnographic phase, asking participants to complete tasks and record videos talking about their experiences of housing. Other areas of focus included participants’ their ideas on what problems exist in the housing sector are, what they think the solutions could be and what they would do if they were housing minister for the day.  

Participants ranged from people considered part of ‘middle England’ and politically centre right, those from non-London towns, people with higher proximity to bad housing and community engaged groups, affluent liberals, young activists and some supporters on Shelter’s database. The quantitative research that ran alongside the qual included a 4,000-strong nationally representative sample and a survey of 2,000 of Shelter’s existing supporters. 

The use of video was designed to help staff at Shelter get a more intimate portrayal of the views of the public. Heath was enthusiastic about the impact of video in the research. “The idea of having the video content that brought people to life was quite a big influence on who we decided to go with when doing the procurement for this work,” she explains. “That’s been a really important engagement tool and motivates people to think about what these people are actually saying to them, rather than just seeing it in a written report.” 

Following on from the qualitative and quantitative research was a co-creation day, with half of the focus group participants coming in to spend a day in Shelter’s offices with staff, helping staff work on campaigns and providing insight into their attitudes to housing. “The supporters and people taking part in the research felt valued and felt they were really being listened to, and their ideas, thoughts and wishes were being taken on board,” says Heath. 

Checking the foundations 
The findings of the research set out the breadth and depth of understanding on the issue of bad housing and homelessness, says Joe Barrell, founder and principal at Eden Stanley. “The people we spoke to in the qual were able to talk with enormous amounts of nuance and knowledge about the issues, about people’s experiences of it and their own experience of it, whether direct or indirect. Most people, now, have some experience. People are able to describe housing policy quite well – people knew the solutions.” 

Among the findings, the 2023 research separated people into four groups that were supportive of Shelter’s aims: ‘equality allies’ who wanted social justice; ‘practical activists’, who wanted a fairer society and are prepared to work to achieve it; ‘community kindness’, who provide support for the less affluent locally; and ‘house-proud humanity’, who believe in a sense of fair play and that everyone deserves an equal opportunity in life.