Social Landlord Project

The Centre for Housing Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Adelaide was provided with funding in 2009 to complete a research project that explored the important role of social landlords in meeting the housing needs of people living with disability in the 21st century.

Some of the key findings of this research included:

• the role of the social landlord involves much more than just providing an affordable "roof" or a bed to sleep in
• social landlords have a crucial role to play in promoting social inclusion and addressing barriers to accessible, life-enhancing housing
• "good" social landlords are those that take a person-centred approach and enable tenants living with disability to have peace and comfort, security of tenure, safety, and independence in their housing.

A key recommendation of the report was the creation of a code of practice for social landlords to formalise understanding of what constitutes good practice for social landlords through:

• clearly communicating the roles and responsibilities of tenants and landlords
• outlining the important role of housing and housing providers in facilitating social and economic connectedness
• indicating the strategies and actions in place to facilitate tenant choice, participation and autonomy.