5 actionable ways to build trust in UK social housing

If you work in social housing communications or tenant engagement, you already know that between rising regulatory scrutiny (think Awaab’s Law and Tenant Satisfaction Measures), and a huge issue with public trust, the old way of communicating simply isn’t cutting it anymore.

A recent webinar hosted by Dominic Ridley-Moy (Behaviour Change Network), featuring Sam Walker (Orlo), Aimee Cavener (Home Group), and Abi Boyd (Thirteen Group), dug deep into how trust actually works.

The main takeaway was that trust is something that, according to behaviour change science, is extremely hard to build, and super easy to lose. It’s something that’s built through repeated, reliable, and human interactions, and isn’t something that can be built from a clever marketing campaign.

For those who couldn’t make the session, or those who want a quick refresher, we’ve taken the conversation and created five actionable strategies you can use in your organisation right now to build trust with your residents.

To build trust, we have to understand how it operates at a neurological level. Dominic explained that our brains are hardwired from primeval times to constantly scan for threats. In a housing context, if a resident feels ignored or stigmatised multiple times, it triggers a threat response. Every missed or delayed repair then confirms that threat and leads to seriously damaged trust.

How to act on this:

• Prioritise psychological safety: If residents don’t feel safe, the most beautifully designed communication in the world will completely miss the mark. Aimee highlighted this by sharing how Home Group shifted their focus to content rooted in a ‘happy and healthy home life’ for example, offering practical tips to stay well during cold snaps. Because this content directly addressed their residents’ immediate well-being, tenants felt looked after and listened to. This sense of safety opened the door for much more positive engagement, proving that when you make people feel safe, trust follows naturally.
• Reciprocity: Hard word to say (according to Dominic!) but it’s true that human relationships run on a give-and-take model. Dominic notes that if a resident reports a repair and it’s fixed promptly, they feel compelled to respond positively next time.
• Become a trusted source: Information from a remote, unaccountable institution is viewed suspiciously by the brain. To get messages through, you must build repeated, reliable, and respectful interactions over time so you are perceived as a frontline ally, not a distant faceless organisation.

A massive pitfall for traditional engagement is treating social media purely as a one-way broadcast tool. Sam pointed out that 66% of people have little or no trust in traditional or social media right now. To cut through the noise, housing associations must become the most trusted, reliable voice in their residents’ lives.

How to act on this:

• Turn your comments on: Stop hiding from the feedback. If that’s where residents are talking, so that’s where you need to be listening. Sam challenges the phrase “hard to reach” tenants as usually, it’s the landlord that is hard to access.
• Track emotion, not just sentiment: Standard sentiment analysis (positive/negative/neutral) doesn’t tell you how someone actually feels. Emotion is the leading indicator of future behaviour and trust. For example, if confusion is highlighted as a recurring emotion, you may just need to adjust your comms accordingly to address that confusion.
• Centralise your data: Don’t let your data live in silos. To prepare for intense regulatory scrutiny, bring your social insights, call logs, complaints, and survey data into one centralised place so you can cross-reference and take quick action.

When communicating regulatory updates, damp and mould advice, or health and safety compliance, messaging can often feel clinical, cold, and overly instructional.

How to act on this:

• Ditch the copy and paste scripts: Abi shared how Thirteen Group switched it up from rigid, scripted email responses to clear, personal, and empathetic language. When the tone feels human, residents feel valued and react with less frustration.
• Show, don’t just tell: Instead of handing down a list of “dos and don’ts,” Thirteen Group are using real storytelling, lived experiences, and peer-to-peer self-help videos that empower residents to change behaviours naturally.
• Co-design with residents: Thirteen Group brought customers directly into the room to restructure their website. The result? An 80-year-old tenant who had never opened a webpage in his life is now confidently using the site because it was built with him, not for him.

It’s incredibly common for housing comms teams to lose confidence after facing negative online engagement, often shrinking back to only posting about emergencies. Aimee admitted that Home Group went through this exact phase, but overcame it by realising they just had to show up, but do it smarter.

How to act on this:

• Test, learn, and tweak: What you think will work often doesn’t. For example, Home Group posted a nostalgic feature about an old primary school becoming affordable housing, thinking it would fly. It tanked. In contrast, a post offering practical tips on staying active and beating seasonal illnesses in cold weather succeeded because it aligned with their customers’ immediate needs.
• Establish a web governance gatekeeper: Home Group set up a Web Editorial Board to review content requests against GA4 data, user behaviour, and search trends. If an internal request doesn’t serve an actual customer need or match the content strategy, they say no.
• Keep content fresh: Out of date website content instantly erodes trust. If you can’t maintain it, don’t post it.

Mis and disinformation is everywhere at the moment, and being open builds credibility. This means tackling difficult situations head-on rather than staying silent.

How to act on this:

• Explain the “why”: When people understand the reasoning behind a decision, they are far more likely to trust the outcome.
• Challenge misinformation boldly: Abi shared a powerful example where a photo of a bus outside Thirteen Group’s offices went viral with false, racist claims that it was filled with immigrants getting priority housing. Thirteen Group didn’t hide. Instead, they posted a clear explanation of what the bus was actually there for (a board visit).
• Take a firm stance: When the racist comments persisted, Thirteen Group released a zero-tolerance statement and published their exact lettings policy on their website. Because they stood their ground transparently, the community rallied behind them, actively commenting in the landlord’s favour.

We can’t talk about proactive listening without mentioning Awaab’s Law. It’s shifted the focus for every UK landlord, moving the conversation from “how do we fix this?” to “how do we stop this from happening?”

Currently, most landlords identify at-risk properties through traditional data like stock condition surveys, age of the building, and historical repair requests. While these are vital, they only tell part of the story. They tell us about the bricks and mortar, but don’t always tell us about the people inside them.