This research developed and implemented an innovative framework for evaluating and monitoring renewal programs being developed by the NSW Department of Housing for its larger housing estates. While the framework was concerned with improving methods for assessing outcomes within estates, it also developed methods for understanding the previously ignored social and economic impacts on neighbourhoods surrounding the renewal area. This involved the development of new conceptually based evaluation methodologies including those concerned with assessing community safety and wellbeing, the financial and non-financial costs and benefits of renewal, and an understanding of casual relationships between interventions and outcomes.

This project assisted in strengthening the social and economic fabric of disadvantaged public housing estates by developing an innovative framework for monitoring and evaluation the impacts of estate renewal programs in NSW. The framework is capable of evaluating change not only in estates themselves, but also in surrounding neighbourhoods. Special attention was focused on issues of community wellbeing and safety. The development of more advanced techniques to assess the financial and non-financial benefits of renewal activity made a significant contribution to the national body of knowledge about these complex and important renewal programs and their impacts in local communities.