Risk, trust and betrayal: a case study of social housing

This project will examine ways organisations use contracts or agreements to govern relationships, balance risks and maintain trust. The contract is a key medium through which the parties set out their needs and demands and the processes to address these, seeking to avoid a breach of trust or relationship breakdown. Where the organisations are mutually reliant, any breach of trust may be more keenly felt as a betrayal, particularly if previously accepted norms appear rejected. An important question will be the extent to which the contract-making process involves the imposition of external understandings rather than the establishment of local needs and concerns.
We study these themes in the context of social housing, focusing on local authorities that retain statutory obligations to households in housing need but have transferred the housing stock to a Registered Social Landlord (RSL). The local authority will have an agreement to nominate households to the RSL's housing. Particular problems occur where the nominated household is perceived as 'risky' to the RSL such households are frequently homeless, and with high support needs. Such micro-cases lead to feelings of betrayal and breakdown in the contract, crisis in 'public service' concerns of meeting housing need, and renegotiation of relationships.