20 December 2022
Are we housing managers or social paramedics?
Lisa Birchall
NFA Policy and Research Officer
The financial welbeing team at Tower Hamlets Homes
Across the country, housing officers are all saying the same thing: they’ve run out of tools to support people.
THINGS have been tough for a long time for tenants living in social housing. Housing staff were talking about an escalating mental health crisis among their customers even before COVID-19, and government has been squeezing support for the poorest for a decade or more.
Obviously not every social housing tenant teeters perpetually on the brink of financial catastrophe and uncertain health. But more of them belong to the group that data collectors describe as economically precarious than, say, those who rent from private landlords.
They are more likely to live with disabilities, more likely to be lone carers of children or other family members, and more likely to be from an ethnic minority background. These are disadvantages that often shut them out of an inflexible jobs market – and mean that even when they can find work, they will earn less on average than homeowners or private renters. Now, to this baseline of disadvantage, add the impact of Brexit, COVID-19, a cost-of-living crisis and the current recession.
At the NFA we talk to lots of on-the-ground staff who know their communities inside-out – housing officers, income managers, repairs staff. Across the country, they are all saying the same thing: they’ve run out of tools to support people.
Households are not just turning off their heating. They are asking for their gas supply to be capped and gas meters removed. Some are making desperate, dangerous choices about how they might keep warm and cook food indoors without using the gas or electricity supply. Ventilation systems are being switched off or taped over.
So – the question we all want answered; is there any possible solution in these times of collapsing public finances and galloping inflation?
Many ALMOs are the glue, even sometimes the filler, that social housing tenants can use to hold themselves in place and sidestep disaster.
What do ALMOs do?
ALMOs, where they exist, are unique. Wholly owned by the local council, and yet acting as specialist housing managers, they have a privileged position among local organisations. People go in search of other agencies when they have a specific need – health care, education, social support – and slip through the gaps if they can’t or don’t like to ask for help. But a well-run, locally owned housing organisation reaches its customers on their doorsteps and can actively seek out the gaps.
So, for instance, ALMOs often provide money advice and financial wellbeing services. While not obviously part of housing business, this work is a key part of sensible, sound housing management; ultimately a tenant with manageable finances is someone who can pay their rent. The ALMO approach is very much not to wait until huge arrears make eviction inevitable – it is to be vigilant, to act quickly on early signs that a tenant is struggling and offer sustained, constructive help.
Likewise employment and training, so that tenants can not only find work but also perhaps find a better-paid job by improving their skills; winter warmth schemes to help hard-pressed households maintain a healthy level of comfort; and local partnerships that join up the dots between housing and healthcare.
Many ALMOs are the glue, even sometimes the filler, that social housing tenants can use to hold themselves in place and sidestep the abyss.
Can ALMOs keep on doing all this?
ALL this was once a routine part of holistic ALMO housing work.
Now, in perpetual crisis mode, housing officers battle daily to identify and contact the households in direst need.
There is often no clear picture of what help is on offer from a fragmented government, charity and private sector, and tenants need all the help they can get to access hardship funds, benefits or any of the financial support they are entitled to. Staff are trying to be imaginative about solutions that are low-cost and effective – working with supply chains to raise funds to purchase heated throws, slow cookers and other items that can be handed out to those most in need, and opening up their own organisation’s buildings as warm hubs. The list goes on.
Too often these days, housing officers tell us, they feel more like disaster response workers.
Across the sector, we are hearing that there’s no slack left and nothing in reserve.
For instance …
TOWER Hamlets Homes runs the borough’s Financial Health Centre on behalf of the council. In one place, customers can access a bank of experts who know about benefits, legal advice, disability rights and benefits, employment and training, money management and debt advice. The Citizens Advice Bureau also works from the centre.
During the cost-of-living crisis , the centre and council have been working with a range of public and private sector partners to get vouchers to help residents with food and energy. More than £175,000 worth of shopping vouchers and over £23,000 energy payment vouchers have been handed out from the centre so far.
The centre doesn’t simply wait for people to turn up. Neighbourhood Money Matters is the centre’s roadshow staffed by experts which has travelled through the borough to create pop-up advice sessions. Requests for help have skyrocketed, and the centre has increased its staff to try to meet the needs of its community.
Among other crisis responses from Tower Hamlets housing managers are the ‘Warm Banks’ set up in partnership with tenants and residents associations that run the borough’s community buildings, and persuading contractors to donate 900 free one-year broadband connections to improve residents’ access to vital information and resources.
But all this is at the outer limit of what a housing management organisation can do. Across the sector, we are hearing that there’s no slack left and nothing in reserve.
How much longer can social landlords go on working like this?
CRISIS mode is not sustainable. Housing is a basic right, yet circumstances and policy have transformed housing managers and officers into social paramedics.
We need a long-term strategy from government to restore the resilience of our communities.
We need a social safety net which gives the poorest sufficient money to make ends meet.
We need quick and wholescale insulation and retrofit of draughty homes.
We need a proper strategy and funding that helps social landlords reach those furthest from work to support them into good quality jobs.
And desperately, desperately – we need the long-promised funding for a new generation of truly affordable homes.
Lisa Birchall has been the NFA’s Policy and Research officer since 2017.