Housing insecurity and displacement: A call for psychological support to empower the community of Druids Heath

Putting psychological evidence at the heart of action on poverty has been a key priority for the BPS in recent years, perhaps best personified by the 2019-2020 “From Poverty to Flourishing” campaign. The campaign has yielded a number of key briefing papers including those on the importance of bringing psychology into action on poverty (BPS, 2020) and helping policymakers understand how poverty can diminish people’s ability to exercise agency and empowerment (BPS, 2021). We apply these insights to the current reality of the ‘regeneration’ plan for the most deprived area of Birmingham and make the case for why psychologists should stand together with the local community and support them to ensure that the plan truly meets the needs of the people of Druids Heath.

A history of displacement and neglect

Druids Heath is a large suburb on the southeastern edge of Birmingham, the last destination of the number 50 bus, which travels from the city centre through Balsall Heath, Moseley and Kings Heath before the city meets the countryside. The estate was built in 1967; a mix of sixteen 13-storey tower blocks and low-rise flats and terraces, interspersed with large patches of green space based around the “Radburn” architectural principles. Whilst Radburn urban designs and alleyways are sometimes blamed for contributing to crime rates and community isolation in large estates, it was seen as a paradise when residents first moved in. Compared to the cramped and overcrowded conditions many had been living in the Balsall Heath back-to-back houses (often described as ‘slums’), the wide open spaces and proximity to the countryside was a very welcome move. Many of the residents moved en bloc from the inner city during the Balsall Heath clearance process and the community stayed together during the displacement. Today, over 11,000 people live in Druids Heath.

The history of Druids Heath since the 1960s mirrors that of many other neglected areas across the UK: it has never recovered from the loss of regional manufacturing and major industries in the eighties and chronic underinvestment ever since. Unemployment is at 13% (compared to 8% across Birmingham) and the average income is £16,847. In 2013, the area’s only secondary school, Baverstock School, became an academy but was put into special measures by Ofsted in 2014 and deemed not financially sustainable. The school sat abandoned for 3 years before being demolished in 2018. As of 2019, Druids Heath was the 45th most deprived area in England, and the most deprived in Birmingham by some margin. 

Running counter to the systematic neglect of Druids Heath, is its rich history of community activism and solidarity, of action groups and support groups and the 1990 campaign for the local “Dell” to be registered as a village green. Chief amongst the residents’ campaigns is for investment and regeneration in the area and in particular the housing stock, the majority of which form social houses owned by Birmingham City Council. 29% of homes in the area are concentrated in the large panel system highrise blocks built with non-traditional forms of construction that are expensive to refurbish and very energy inefficient. Despite long-standing promises to replace the houses and high-rises they have instead sat neglected for decades. 

In 2018, the Council finally answered the call to regenerate Druids Heath. Yet, instead of refurbishment and investment in their community, the people of Druids Heath have since found themselves fighting for their homes and community. Part 1 of the regeneration plan for the area included the demolition of 13 of the high-rises (since updated to demolishing all 16 of the blocks) and many of the bungalows. The total loss of homes to the area has been 250: 4-5 blocks have been cleared whilst the council has granted permission for only 49 new homes to date.

While the council’s plans indicate that current residents will have the option to return, many are not reassured that this is a right that they can effectively enforce. Levels of institutional trust in the council are very low after decades of neglect and this has been further hampered by fall-outs with The Pioneer Group, contracted to “undertake community engagement”. Residents will have to re-bid for a place to live and are very worried about where they might end up living and whether it will even be in the area, given the reduced housing stock in the new plan and the competing pressures for housing across the city. Others have watched their high-rise homes be slowly cleared out and crime levels and fear of crime spike at the same time. One resident from Hillcroft House said that “I was very scared to be the last one in the block. I was very scared that at the end the application might be changed to the homeless.”

Even the local MP Steve McCabe is concerned. In a recent BBC interview he stated: “It’s no way to live. What most of us want in our life is some degree of predictability. This will work if it’s a joint enterprise where the local people are brought onside with the council. If the local people feel that this is being done to us they will feel alienated, and that’s what’s happening, people are fed up, they’re angry, frustrated, their mental health’s affected.” 

Classic psychological theories can provide language and constructs to describe what has been happening for many people in Druids Heath. Decades of feeling overlooked and neglected may have increased feelings that the council cannot be trusted with the regeneration (Rogers et al., 2000). The protracted insecurity introduced by the uncertainty of the regeneration plan (how is it going to affect me and my family?; where are we going to live?; when is this going to happen?; will we be able to return?) is a constant stressor and direct cause of mental distress (McGrath et al., 2016). Also important is the literal dismantling of the community as a support network itself, as the clearance process slowly moves people to other parts of the city and away from each other.

Self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000) teaches us about the three fundamental needs: psychological relatedness (the need to interact with and care for and by others), competence (the need to feel one’s behaviour is having an effect on the world around us) and autonomy (the need to feel that our actions are arising from a sense of our own volition and for our own good). It is vital therefore that any regeneration process that purports to truly serve and support the health and well-being of the people of Druids Heath, does so in a way that fully empowers local residents to effect change that serves them, that aims to keep them together and protect their community and that recognises and is led by their autonomous voices and needs. Just as important is ensuring that dialogue between the council and residents is poverty-aware and takes into account the social and psychological realities of deprivation (Sheehy-Skeffington & Rea, 2017). From what residents have told us, the current approach to engaging with the community has only served to alienate residents from the council and the plan.

Regeneration and the Fight Back: Build First

Some residents are standing up and fighting back for their community. These residents have organised to oppose the council’s plans, demanding the council build homes first before demolition, providing permanent, quality, secure homes in Druids Heath. Build First Druids Heath is the residents’ campaign to Build First before eviction, ensuring that residents get to move to a new house, stay in the area and only move once: into a permanent, quality home within their communities. It aims to keep the community together and avoid the costs of social prescribing and the largely ignored negative impacts on children being moved away from schools and their friends. This will bring back those who have been moved from their homes and said they want to return alongside those tenants currently affected by the clearance process.

Empowering the Community

We urge all readers and those who understand the psychological importance of supporting the agency, autonomy and empowerment of marginalised communities to stand with local people in Druids Heath. Our local Medact Birmingham group is building a group of regular volunteers to support the community with representing their needs the council, empower them as community researchers and activists as well as support them and bear witness to the lived realities of the impacts of the regeneration plan. If you would like to get involved with this, you can find out more via the website.

Emma Bridger (Senior Research Fellow in Psychology) can be reached via email, as can Jordi López-Botey (Medact Economic Justice Campaign & Programme Lead).