New Queensland Mental Health Commission funded research has found that tenant participation in social housing can play an important role in helping people experience a sense of home, autonomy and belonging.
Published in Housing Studies, the research explored how social housing tenants experience participation in decisions that affect their housing and why this matters. The study was led by researchers from The University of Queensland and undertaken in partnership with social housing tenants.
What is tenant engagement?
Tenant engagement means housing providers offer opportunities for tenants to have a greater say in their housing experience. This means giving tenants ways to raise issues, share their ideas, and put solutions into action to improve their experience of where they live.
The research found that effective tenant participation is supported by:
- valuing tenants' lived-living experience and knowledge
- creating meaningful opportunities for tenants to influence decisions
- investing in the resources needed to support participation
- ensuring participation is genuine rather than tokenistic
- recognising tenants' right to choose whether and how they participate.
Importantly, the study found that tenant participation can support wellbeing by helping tenants have a greater say in matters that affect their daily lives and living environments.
The Commission funded this research as part of its commitment to embedding lived-living experience perspectives in policy, service design and systems that affect people's lives.
Key findings
The research found that:
- tenants place a high value on being involved in decisions, policies and activities that affect their housing
- participation works best when housing providers actively support and resource engagement
- tenants' lived-living experience knowledge provides valuable insights that can improve housing services
- participation can strengthen tenants' sense of control, choice and connection to where they live
- having the option not to participate is also an important aspect of autonomy and feeling at home.
Read the research
Tenant participation to enable the experience of home in social housing
Parsell, C., Sharma, N., Perrier, R., Anderson, M., Donohue, B., Plage, S., Kuskoff, E. et al. (2026). Housing Studies.
Read the full article on the Housing Studies website: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02673037.2026.2622932
