These questions were posed and debated by a number of organisations and publications in 2022, including the UK Government’s 2022 Risk Report and Social Housing Residents Survey, the Better Social Housing Review’s 2022 Report, and Inside Housing’s Ten themes that should dominate the housing sector in 2023, to name just a few. 

While the precise nature of the recommendations changes between each report, there are clear overriding themes: the cost-of-living crisis, overworked housing association staff, the cap on social housing rent increases, decarbonisation commitments, necessary but expensive investments in technology, and improving tenant wellbeing. Unsurprisingly, these are the same themes we’ve been hearing from tenants, housing directors and sector experts for months now.

With these points in mind, Occupi wanted to reevaluate our mission to ensure that we’re meeting the needs of the sector and aligning with our own core values. Our SMART technology is always learning and adapting, and we need to make sure that we do the same as an organisation. 

As such, we are now investigating what it means to be SMART in the social housing sector, exploring how each of our five values relate to the issues faced by the industry, the underlying causes of these issues, and how Occupi is a step towards solving them.