Public Housing Tenants' Strengths and Skills and Available Opportunities in Their Residential Environment to Put Them in Action

This paper aims to empirically explore the strengths and skills among public housing tenants as well as the opportunities offered by their environment to use them. In Quebec (Canada), 310 participants took part in interviews including open and closed-ended questions about their strengths and skills. Public housing tenants indicated possessing a diversity of strengths and skills. Although participants hinted toward a positive influence of their environment, they quantitatively evaluated the available opportunities to use their strengths and skills as moderately satisfying. The findings suggest a need for interventions specifically tailored to low-income populations such as public housing tenants.