Tackling poverty through housing investment: An evaluation of a community self‐build project in Glasgow

Abstract

Community self‐build housing has been proposed as a means of tackling urban poverty in Britain. Advocates believe it can improve access to employment and housing for poor people simultaneously. In this paper, a detailed evaluation is made of a community‐based project in Drumchapel, Glasgow. The project was most successful in physical and organisational terms: a major refurbishment scheme was organised by a partnership of diverse bodies and completed on a tight timescale using unskilled, inexperienced labour. The cost was not much greater than it would have been using a commercial contractor and a trained workforce. Most participants gained a sense of achievement and interpersonal skills from working as a group on a practical project. Yet, not many moved into the flats afterwards and stayed, and few secured jobs straightaway. Overall, the project was a valuable learning experience and there may be scope for wider application of many of the basic ideas. There are also specific lessons for the Drumchapel approach including the need for clear, realistic objectives; careful balance between meeting people's needs for housing, training and broader development; thoughtful selection of the participants and property, and effective community involvement.

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