Slides from ENHR Conference, Edinburgh, July 2014. With permission from Douglas Robertson (joint author) Embedded in Research Unbound / Home Not Housing.

1. Home not housing: Engaging with well-being outcomes
http://www.scottishinsight.ac.uk/Programmes/Wellbeing2014/HomenotHousing.aspx
Home as a core component of well-being:
Benchmarking the evidence base
Douglas Robertson**, Deborah Peel* and Beverley Searle*
**School of Applied Social Science, University of Stirling
*School of the Environment, University of Dundee
ENHR Conference 2014
'Beyond Globalisation. Remaking Housing Policy in a Complex World‘
University of Edinburgh, 1-4 July, 2014

2. Overview
1. Project and policy context
2. ‘Knowledge mobilisation’ process
3. Interpreting well-being – preliminary findings
4. Re-positioning home and well-being?

3. 1. Policy context
Source: Office of National
Statistics, 2013

4. Source: Scottish Government, 2011.

5. The Purpose
Purpose Targets
NationalIndicators
- Increase the number of new homes
- Improve access to suitable housing options for those in housing need
- Improve people's perceptions of their neighbourhood
- Improve people's perceptions about the crime rate in their area
- Reduce the proportion of individuals living in poverty
High Targets
Strategic Objectives NationalOutcomes
- We live in well-designed, sustainable
places where we are able to access the
amenities and services we need
- We live our lives safe from crime, disorder
and danger
Source: Scottish Government, 2011.

6. Scotland Performs
Source: Scottish Government, 2011.

7. Questioning Measurement?
“Metrics are supposed to help our quest to
create a better world but they will never be a
substitute for public dialogue and thinking about
what makes for a good society”
Source: Stiglitz, J. (2012) 4th OECD World Forum, New Delhi

8. SUII Well-being 2014
• A series of linked programmes around understanding,
measuring and promoting well-being in collaboration with
the Scottish Government, Scotland's Futures Forum,
Carnegie UK Trust, Scottish Enterprise, Scottish
Environmental Protection Agency, Audit Scotland, Scottish
Natural Heritage, David Hume Institute, SCVO and Oxfam
Scotland.
• Programmes will address the key issues around social,
environmental and economic well-being with the aim of
making a contribution to the development of policy and
practice in Scotland and elsewhere, including the
development of Scotland’s National Performance
Framework, ‘Scotland Performs’.

9. Funded Programme Team
Douglas Robertson, University of Stirling
Deborah Peel, University of Dundee
Beverley Searle, University of Dundee
James Mitchell, University of Edinburgh
Thilo Kroll, Social Dimensions of Health Institute
Martin Higgins, NHS Lothian
Lisa Pattoni, IRISS
Rosemary Brotchie, Shelter Scotland
Professor Jill Grant, Dalhousie University, Canada

10. Project - Home not housing: Engaging with well-being outcomes
(i) personal determinants : home and well-being
(ii) environmental determinants : neighbourhood and well-being
To:
(a) review, rethink & reflect on the relationships between personal and
environmental factors in the construction of our understandings of what
constitutes home, drawing directly from a fuller appreciation of
individual perceptions of belonging, identity and personal autonomy
derived from a ‘knowledge mobilisation’ exercise;
(b) identify how this considered construction of home could contribute to
the emerging public management discourse on outcomes and well-
being; and
(c) explore how this emerging understanding of home would impact on
alternative housing solutions that would better contribute to improving
individual flourishing and personal wellbeing

11. 2. The Knowledge Mobilisation Process

12. Workshop 1
Sharing Meanings of Home

13. Sharing learning

14. A Postcard Home

15. Carousel

19. Preliminary findings – how is it measuring up?
• Dimensions of home and well-being still being considered
in an integrated way, so still not properly developed to
enhance our understanding of just how home contributes
to interpretations of well-being
• Official meanings (and indicators) separated and siloed by
government department (built & natural environments,
health & social care, planning), discipline (social / life
sciences) and professions (planning, social work, housing,
building control, environmental health, policing,
community development)

20. Personal meanings of home: Complex & shifting
• Meaning of ‘home’ highly differentiated – via
individual & household contexts, life-cycle and life-
world experiences – “lost it / miss it”
– Fun, busy, noisy & chaotic
– Peaceful, quiet – to nourish & revitalise
• Home is critical to enhancing family life &
relationships with friends – love, an emotional space
• Home provides is a place of sanctuary & self
expression
• Place of comfort and warmth
• Place of self expression, freedom, independence - “a
place to be yourself”

21. Personal meanings of home: Complex & shifting
• Storage place for stuff
• Site of work / employment and housework
• Security & safety – ontological security, thus
critical to mental well
• Place of care / support
• Multiple places / different scales
• Site of conflict / negative feelings

22. Official understandings of well-being
• Global measures of happiness or satisfaction with life overall, or with specific life
domains (health, work, space, housing etc)
• Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (Hills & Argyle, 2002) taps into people’s
emotional state, ability to make decisions, feeling satisfied, being healthy, showing
an interest in other people, having a sense of life achievement and being in control
• Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey (1990s, 2000s)– focuses on having the
resources necessary to participate in society, whereby a lack of such resources is
an infringement on well-being.
• More recently the OECD (2013) Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Wellbeing
(SWB) use the following definition:
Good mental state, including all of the various evaluations, positive and negative, that people make of their
lives and the affective reactions of people to their experiences.
OECD definition moves beyond the ‘hedonic’ aspects (i.e. happiness) to incorporate the ‘eudaimonic’
aspects of SWB (i.e. measures of meaningfulness or purpose).

23. Public policy construction of housing & well-
being
• Current notions of how housing contributes to
well-being tend to be primarily driven by the
previous dominant economic and physical
quality focused discourses that framed
housing policy
• Our preliminary findings challenge this
construction
• Challenge of the emotional – both outcomes
& measures?

24. Personal meanings of well-being : Complex & shifting
• Happiness
• Relationships
• Health
• Stress free
• Safety & security
• Income / wealth
• Nature / green space
• Confidence

25. Invitation
Second seminar will take place on Tuesday
8th July 2014 in the Scottish Universities Insight
Institute, University of Strathclyde, Collins
Building, 22 Richmond Street, Glasgow G1 1XQ.
http://www.scottishinsight.ac.uk/Programmes/
Wellbeing2014/HomenotHousing.aspx

26. Home no housing – key to unlocking well-being
• Wellbeing rarely linked to housing beyond its shelter &
build quality
• But is linked to home (and controversially home-
ownership, rather than renting) through the concept of
ontological security (Giddens, 1991)
– security & trust in the world
– confidence in the social order
– for people to feel they have the right to be themselves &
believe they can achieve self-actualisation
• Our preliminary work suggests it is far more complex
than this