Let's Ban the C-word! - By Alicia Mortlock
Thursday 14th of August 2025
George Orwell famously said, ‘But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.’ His statement highlights how language shapes thought and, in turn, social policy.
Most people enjoy talking about themselves, and those involved in the social housing sector, whether tenants, staff, or board members, are no exception. As an ‘informed’ tenant, I hadn't expected to be fighting a battle with housing providers over terminology. I thought we were maintaining a truce, the chance for everyone to take a few deep breaths after a few years of rapid and disruptive change.
At the heart of the disconnect are the words tenants use to describe ourselves versus those which staff working within the not-for-profit housing sector prefer to use when talking about us. The most controversial of all is the ‘C-word’ - customer. The current debate over the language used - tenant, resident, or customer - will directly shape the balance of power and priorities in social housing because the words we use are part of the fight for dominance over who makes what social policy. Pressure to adopt a uniform language becomes significant because it affects how tenants and staff communicate and perceive one another.
I was recently in a seminar alongside housing association staff who wouldn’t have attended unless they were looking to improve the sometimes uneasy relationship with their tenants. And yet, I was unable to focus on the conversation because of the blanket reference to ‘customers’. A sardonic smile on my face, I held my tongue for about twenty minutes before mentioning that I hadn’t heard any talk of tenants. My point was lost in translation, and I was reminded that customers had been first mentioned in the first 30 seconds of the presentation. Oh dear, some issues with miscommunication haven’t gone away.
Don’t get me wrong, I see why professionals in the business use familiar terms to make processes more efficient or get better contractor deals. As a former community development officer, I prefer the more inclusive term ‘resident’ when discussing our responsibilities to our communities. I use ‘tenant’ when referring to the legal rights and duties of those named in a tenancy agreement.
Most tenants will argue that ‘customer’ implies a choice we do not have and symbolises the shift away from social purpose toward commercial priorities. Business models threaten the core of social housing, not just because tenants cannot ‘shop around’ for alternatives. More than social commentators and politicians, tenants truly recognise what we lost in the 1980s and 1990s with voluntary stock transfer because the commercial focus of post-transfer landlords often overshadows the fundamental right to a decent home.
Our core argument is that treating tenants as customers ignores both the economic reality and the social mission of housing. Does it really make sense that we are referencing the for-profit sector in our language, when recent housebuilding has led to the exclusion of an increasing number of people within our communities, in conflict with the ‘social’ mission of housebuilding in order to provide more people with a home?
Many of us feel we are clinging to the last vestiges of social housing as we witness the erosion of the symbiotic relationship between tenants and the community, and the social mission of providers. We are the protectors and the curators of what has to be one of the most outstanding achievements of the last century: the move to clear slums, make decent homes available in even the smallest country village, and reduce some of the most visible inequalities between those who did and didn't have access to the means or methods of owning a home.
By the time of the General Election of 1918, we faced an acute housing shortage. The First World War focused the public on the national responsibility to provide ‘homes fit for heroes’. Inflated building costs and the scarcity of labour and materials meant that private developers could no longer provide houses with affordable rents to the average working-class family. It was the convergence of public will and social capital, government policy and economic factors which led to the Housing Act of 1919. This act, and the promise of government subsidies to help finance the construction of hundreds of thousands of new homes, marked a significant turning point in our housing history, one that we should continue to honour and uphold. Where is the pride in something we should all be proud of? What can be a better measure of a humane society than one in which we all work together to ensure everyone has access to a warm and healthy home? Moreover, even without nostalgia for past social housing, consider the argument that social capital has a powerful impact on economic growth, health, crime, and government effectiveness.
Language shapes whether we are treated as true partners or side-lined in social housing. The main argument is simple: We are not customers. We are consumers. And we are stakeholders. Our full participation in decision-making is crucial to safeguarding the promise of decent and truly affordable social homes. Our rent not only purchases a seat at the table of decision-makers, but also gives us a voice in our communities, including a say in the terminology used in the policies that affect us as we invite other players in the registered housing sector to collaborate with us in enshrining the historical promise of decent housing in the walls of new affordable homes.
It begins with a ban on the C-word. Let’s all work together towards making ‘Tenant’ linguistically and socially truly great again.