Floor coverings in social housing

Carpets and other floor coverings play an important role in making a house feel like a home. They provide warmth, comfort, safety and dignity, particularly for families with young children, older residents and people with health conditions. But not every resident moving into a housing association home can afford to install floor coverings, and not every housing association is currently able to provide them in every property they let.

Housing associations recognise how important this issue is for residents. Across the sector, many organisations already offer targeted support for households in particular need, including help with carpets or other basic furnishings. In a survey of NHF members, a substantial majority said they support residents who need to install carpets in their homes.

Some housing associations are also able to provide floor coverings for all new residents. Where this is possible, it can bring wider benefits: helping people settle more quickly, reducing hardship at the start of a tenancy and improving the overall quality of the home. However, these approaches often involve difficult trade-offs, with organisations balancing investment in floor coverings against other urgent priorities such as repairs, building safety, decarbonisation and other improvements to homes.

That is why we believe the focus should be on understanding and sharing best practice, while recognising the financial and practical pressures housing associations face. Last autumn, as part of the government’s consultation on a new Decent Homes Standard, we suggested a pilot to explore how floor coverings could be provided more effectively, particularly for households most in need.

We were pleased to see the government confirm, alongside the revised Decent Homes Standard, that it will develop guidance on good practice and intends to establish a pilot. This is an important opportunity to work with housing associations and residents to better understand what works, what gets in the way and what support would make the biggest difference. We are feeding into both the good practice guidance and the design of the pilot.

Key barriers include the ongoing cost of maintaining and replacing floor coverings, ensuring cleanliness between tenancies, managing risks such as pests, and giving residents meaningful choice without delaying lettings. By exploring these issues through a practical pilot, the government and landlords can develop tools, guidance and resources that help more residents access safe, comfortable and dignified homes.