Identifying leverage points in the social housing system: Housing associations on the path towards degrowth?

Conceived as a publicly-funded means of providing affordable, secure homes, social housing has historically been integral to growth-driven economies. With the gradual retrenchment of welfare policies, the sector continues facing mounting tensions between market imperatives and its social mission—challenges further compounded by the climate crisis. Degrowth proposes an emancipation from a growth-oriented system to reconcile socio-ecological goals; however, the compatibility of a degrowth agenda with that of social housing providers is underexplored. We investigated social housing providers' perceptions of the interventions needed to address the system structures that undermine social housing management and provision—such as declining housing quality, demolition, disinvestment in physical and social infrastructure, and lack of tenant representation—and explored their potential to catalyse the transformational change envisioned by degrowth. In a workshop with representatives of four London-based housing associations, we used participatory system dynamics (SD) to identify systemic interventions, and discuss their feasibility, impact, and implementation barriers. We then bridged systems thinking and degrowth frameworks to explore the kinds of transformation these interventions may enact, and their synergies with approaches to creating degrowth-oriented value. Approaches such as ‘Equalising inequalities’ and ‘Shrinking, slowing, and extending resource cycles’ were more frequently linked to interventions at shallower leverage points in the system. Conversely, most interventions associated with ‘Democratic, purpose-driven, and transparent governance’ and ‘Overcoming economic growth dynamics’ targeted the deepest type of leverage points in the system. Our findings demonstrate the value of SD in helping stakeholders formulate interventions addressing symptoms and root causes of systemic issues arising from growth-oriented structures, offering guidance for future research and practice. • System dynamics workshops elicited interventions in the English social housing system. • The interventions identified by participants align with approaches to create degrowth-oriented value. • These approaches exhibit different potential to catalyse the transformational change envisioned by degrowth. • Systems thinking and degrowth frameworks can support a combination of interventions at deep and shallow leverage points.