Evaluating social housing policy: a wicked problem?

Abstract

The aim of the research, Evaluating Social Housing Policy: A Wicked Problem?, was to develop and test methods for evaluating social housing policy interventions. The ‘wicked problems’ approach of Rittel and Webber was the key theoretical framework. There were three research questions: What methods can be used to evaluate social housing policy interventions, with tenure mix policy as a case study?; Can these methods be operationalised in New South Wales?; What contribution can the methods make to evaluation theory, policy and practice?

The research questions were investigated using two methods. The first method was a macro-level model of tenure mix and property prices in Sydney, Australia. A second micro-level method used a survey of public and private residents in and around two adjacent areas of social housing in Sydney, Dundas / Telopea and Ermington. Surveying two locations was a proxy for surveying one location at two points in time.

The thesis concluded that cost benefit analysis was not the most appropriate method for social housing evaluation. The macro modelling technique was found to be useful for monitoring the effects of tenure mix policy at program level, including housing affordability impacts of interventions, but did not provide the basis for evaluating such a policy as a whole. The micro-level survey tool was found to offer a technique for local level monitoring and evaluation of tenure mix policy interventions.

The research made significant contributions to the theory and practice of tenure mix policy, specifically about the location of tenure mix interventions, the type of tenure mix policies that would be appropriate, and the location of new social housing. In terms of evaluation theory and practice, progress was made towards addressing causality, the extent to which an outcome is attributable to an intervention, and displacement of social housing tenants from their neighbourhood. The problem of additionality - the amount of change that occurs as the result of an intervention, over and above what would have happened without the intervention - was not resolved. The discussion concluded that social housing policy was a ‘wicked problem’, and evaluating it was problematic because of the nature of social housing, not the nature of evaluation.