Key Implications of Solutions Models
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!e Individual Responsibility model undermines support for collective action. #e model
blames poor housing conditions on individuals themselves, which leads people to conclude that
government action is not warranted. Communicators must work hard to avoid cuing this model—
both explicitly and implicitly in their messages.
•
!e Government Is Inefficient and Corrupt model undermines support for government
intervention. By depicting government as the problem, the model precludes thinking of
government as part of the solution. Communicators must mobilize and cultivate alternative
understandings of government to build support for government programs and public policy
solutions.
•
!e Government as Protector model provides a more productive alternative. Although the
model is recessive—not top of mind and easily pushed aside in people's thinking when a more
dominant way of thinking is cued—it is nevertheless important. It shows that people do have more
positive ways of understanding the role of government, and that communicators must work to pull
this way of thinking forward in people's minds and strengthen it by giving people more practice in
considering government in this way. #e model must also be expanded beyond regulation of
rentals and applied to the full range of housing issues. Additional research should aim to
determine how the model can be most effectively cued and expanded.
•
!e Lawbreakers model saps public concern for undocumented immigrants. #e model is
wholly unproductive, placing undocumented groups outside of the sphere of public concern.
FrameWorks' recent research on immigration provides a range of tools to counter this model and
change attitudes toward undocumented immigrants, including economic narratives and moral
arguments that approach the problem from different perspectives.
11
We recommend that housing
communicators incorporate some of these strategies in their work on immigrant housing issues.
Together, these cultural models make up the "swamp" of public thinking about housing generally and
healthy housing in particular—a set of implicit understandings and assumptions that exist just under the
surface and become active when people are asked to think about housing and health. #e following
graphic depicts this swamp of public understanding.
"A House, a Tent, a Box": Mapping the Gaps Between Expert and Public Understanding of Healthy Housing 28
