A framework for women’s housing with impact
How we helped make evidence-informed decisions for womens housing to maximise impact.
INTRODUCTION
Place is never neutral. These places put women first.
Why us?
The YWCA exists to make gender equity a reality in Australia. Everything about the Y is evidence-informed to deliver impact.
But their housing portfolio - including purpose-built developments, donations and purchased homes - had never been guided by evidence about what makes the biggest difference to women’s lives.
The Y wanted to know what - if anything - they should be doing differently to other housing providers given that they exist to give women access to stable housing to support gender equity.
Our track record of sythethesising and translating research findings into useful, strategic tools for decision making gave the Y confidence that we could meet their needs.
HOW DID WE HELP?
We established a rigorous evidence base to give the Board, Executive and funding bodies confidence that future decision making would be optimised for impact. This included:
synthesising global research into improving the design and management of community housing for women
consulting with women across Australia who have a lived experience of housing vulnerability
analysing the Y’s place within the sector, including engaging with referral partners
From this evidence we developed the Framework - which translates fuzzy concepts like ‘agency’ into increasingly detailed specific criteria for service delivery and housing design.
We also did a deep dive into the diverse identities, experiences and journeys of the Y’s clients to understand how to tailor housing and management styles to meet their needs.
In the end we:
delivered the Y’s housing framework, the “bible” for creating homes to improve gender equity
built questionnaires, checklists and scorecards to operationalise the framework into simple tools for front line workers to use everyday
demonstrated the impact of the framework by designing two schemes for the Y’s showcase housing project.
We led the framework design, operationalisation and handover phases. We then supported the Y internal change management, housing and development teams for a further 12 months to embed the tools.
The procurement of a suitable consultant highlighted the contrast in PRL’s approach compared to the shortlisted architects. PRL was the only consultant who had the ability to transform complex academic practice and research into a Framework that can be easily operationalised by front line workers.”
Charlotte Dillon, General Manager Community Housing YWCA
PROBLEMS
What problems did we solve and how?
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Whilst the teams involved in the day-to-day development, delivery and management of housing had a hunch that they could be doing more to deliver impact for women, the broader organisation needed to have the links between strategy, culture and place explained. They needed to be comfortable that this project would provide an evidence base for greater impact, rather than critiquing current organisational culture and practices.
We know the difference between design frameworks sitting on the shelf or becoming integral to an organisation comes down to bringing individuals on board - demonstrating what’s in it for them, making them comfortable that it won’t mean extra work but will improve outcomes.
Through individual interviews with key Board members, executive and staff; training sessions; workshops and ongoing support we built excitement, confidence and competence within the Y.
“Over 18 months Anna and her team (brought) our executive team on the journey – helping them see the connections between gender inequity and the built environment.”
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The Y wanted their front-line workers to adopt the framework easily through purpose designed tools.
To develop these tools we worked with each team to understand:
processes
decision making
what is inside and outside the Y’s control
We then made simple quizzes, checklists and scorecards to ‘bake’ the framework into efficient, everyday processes.
“PRL synthesised all of the findings into a useful series of tools to help us better buy, build and manage housing for women.”
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Respect, co-design and meaningful engagement is at the heart of all PRL projects, and was critical to creating the Framework.
We did 1:1 interviews, group workshops, zoom and phone calls to meet women where they were on their healing journeys. Their resilience, wisdom and hopes for the future are the basis for the Framework.
Audience
A blue print for the future.
The Framework gives the Y a complete vision of optimal women’s housing. It is both a blue-print for sector leading new developments and a tool to incrementally improve existing assets and practices.
BEHIND THE SCENES
A glimpse of how we made it happen:
SUMMARY
What started with the Y is now sector-wide.
Any surprises?
Homes Victoria (the Victorian State Government Social and Affordable Housing Department) decided that our framework would substantially improve the whole community housing sector and committed funding to support its promotion and adoption.
“The Y were the first non-peak body to receive funding through this grant, demonstrating the importance of this work for Victorian women and the sector.”
Over 8 months we redesigned the core of the framework into an interactive tool that:
educates housing providers about the unique needs of women who have experienced housing vulnerability
demonstrates the impact of specific design and management techniques
amplifies women’s experiences and preferences - in their own words
provides quick wins to improve impact
You can check it out here
PROJECT DETAILS
CLIENT: Ywca
LOCATION: Australia wide
STATUS: COMPLETE
COMPLETED: november 2022
DURATION: 18 MONTHS
Services
Consultation + Engagement
Design Advisory
Masterplan + feasibility study