Gareth Young

Over the course of the month, we will be highlighting research, good practice and people’s stories and experiences to celebrate the good work taking place across the UK (and beyond) to champion the rights of LGBTQ+ people, as well as exploring the challenges, the lack of data and evidence and the continued need for more work to be done, as discrimination still exists for some people when it comes to accessing safe and secure housing.

This month, to coincide with Pride month, we are running a campaign to highlight the excellent research and practice that is taking place to improve housing outcomes for LGBTQ+ people. We will also be sharing stories from LGBTQ+ people about their housing journeys.

In doing so, we hope to be able to celebrate the positive work many people are doing, to raise awareness of others working in this space to help foster new relationships and develop allyship across sectors and organisations and to encourage ongoing meaningful conversations and tangible outputs that can help to create evidence-based policies that encourage equality in housing policy and practice for all LGBTQ+ people.

Pride has been celebrated every year in June since the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York. When the police raided the Stonewall Inn, the people fought back, defending their right to exist in public spaces. As we’ve mentioned before, there has been significant progress made to help redress the inequalities LGBTQ+ people face, and in the UK, we have one of the most progressive statutory frameworks for promoting equality.

Around the world, LGBTQ+ people don’t always face the same protection, and even in the UK, discrimination still exists, and people still find it difficult to bring their full identities to some areas of their lives. For this reason, celebrating Pride is still essential to continue to inspire change. We know, whether it’s from the research that already exists or from conversations with those working in housing, researching housing or people who’ve experienced discrimination in housing themselves, there’s still so much work to do to create more equality in housing.

We are aware that the story we are going to tell this month isn’t representative of the entire community. We are still actively engaging with people and organisations to help diversify our partnerships and build trust and confidence, so more people can share their stories and work with us all on this endeavour. We are aware that certain people’s perspectives won’t be represented here, and we will possibly make some mistakes as we go. This Pride month campaign is only the very start, and we hope to build more awareness and connections as we gain momentum

Over the month, we will hear many different perspectives on LGBTQ+ housing. We have been struck by the positive responses we’ve had to this call, and we have already met lots of new people doing amazing work. The energy from everyone we’ve spoken to, and many who will be sharing content this month, has been amazing and, at the risk of sounding clichéd, has really demonstrated the pride everyone feels in the work they’re doing.

Pride continues to play an important role in helping to defend the rights won over the decades and to challenge anything that threatens to challenge them. For us, as a community of researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, frontline workers, and people who have experienced discrimination because of their identity, we can work together to collaborate and share stories, evidence and best practice to continue to champion equitable, safe housing and services for all.

We are excited to share lots of interesting content this month. You can follow along on social media @housingevidence to learn more about the work that’s being done and to get involved. We are using the hashtag #PrideInHousing23.