Housing’s super heroes

They’re back - and once again the Housing Heroes Awards turn the spotlight on the wealth of talent and commitment that exists among the people who work in housing.

This is the second year of the annual awards designed to recognise the housing sector’s very own heroes - everyone from the most inspirational tenants to exceptional IT and finance teams, career development stars to inspirational colleagues and board members.

Our judges faced a massive task with more than 300 entries to decide between. The quality of entries in 15 categories was outstanding, demonstrating just how many motivated individuals work in housing. Examples of innovation and best practice stretched across all categories, and making it on to the shortlist was, in itself, a huge achievement.

Organised by Inside Housing with the Chartered Institute of Housing, the awards ceremony was held at the Park Lane Hilton in London last week.

Almost 800 people from the housing sector gathered to watch TV presenter and adventurer Ben Fogle announce the winners.

Now find out who won and why - and be inspired by these everyday heroes.

Tenant empowerment team of the year

Winner Poplar Harca

This 8,500-home east London housing association has recruited and trained tenants to play a key role in reviewing the landlord’s service standards. To do this it has provided them with various ways to get involved and contribute to local improvements, while developing their own skills and potential.

In 2009, membership of Poplar Harca’s 12 estate boards grew from 184 residents to 264, with an increase in black and minority ethnic membership from 40 per cent to 54 per cent, which reflects the community’s profile.

In addition, it has four boards that make strategic decisions, all of which have a resident majority, and 24 trained resident directors to ensure they can carry out their role effectively.

Our Housing Heroes judges were especially impressed with Poplar Harca’s initiative to engage young people. It established its youth board in March 2009 and since then, 70 local young people have applied to join. Last year young residents worked on a successful bid for £4 million in National Lottery funding for a youth facility.

Frontline housing team of the year

Winner Liverpool Mutual Homes intensive community pay back team

Ninety-three per cent of offenders complete their community service sentence if they undertake it with Liverpool Mutual Homes community pay back team. The pioneering programme was introduced on the Fountains estate in north Liverpool in 2009 with the aim of making giving back to the community more visible.

Working with partner Merseyside Probation Trust, the team targets unemployed adult offenders and requires them to work five days a week in the community where they offended until they complete their unpaid community service hours.

Since the programme began, there has been a 50 per cent reduction in reported instances of anti-social behaviour on the estate.

‘The work these men have done is excellent. It has helped brighten and clean up our neighbourhood,’ says one resident on the Fountains estate

Inspirational board or cabinet member of the year

Winner Kate Willis, tenant board member, Glasgow Housing Assocation

After years of dedicated service to her fellow tenants in Glasgow, Kate Willis became a tenant board member at Glasgow Housing Association in September 2009.

Ms Willis won this award as a result of her inspirational work, which focuses on the Castlemilk area of the city where she has lived for more than 52 years.

After the transfer of Glasgow Council’s housing stock to the newly formed Glasgow Housing Association in 2003, Ms Willis was elected treasurer of Castlemilk’s Tenants’ Housing Association. In 2008 she was elected its chair.

In the six years since the transfer, she has been involved in the investment of over £18 million to improve tenants’ homes.

As a GHA board member, Ms Willis’s dedication to her fellow tenants continues. She was recently one of the leaders of the Castlemilk Lighting project, which brings colour to three tower blocks in Castlemilk.

And seven years ago, she was involved in setting up the award winning Castlemilk Timebank - a project in which residents share skills and time.

Groundbreaking service team of the year

Winner Moneyline Cymru steering group

The rigour of its approach clinched this award for Moneyline Cymru. Before it was set up in 2008, tenants were often prey to unscrupulous moneylenders charging rates of almost 300 per cent.

Now moneylenders are seldom seen as the scheme offers a much cheaper alternative. ‘It doesn’t just provide loans,’ said the judges. ‘It reduces stress and improves people’s quality of life.’

Moneyline Cymru is run by a partnership of representatives from housing organisations Charter Housing, Community Housing Cymru, RCT Homes, Valleys to Coast Housing, Haford Housing Association, Wales & West Housing Association and Bron Afon Community Housing.

Together they raised £480,000 by persuading 17 social landlords in Wales to support the project. They also contacted Social Finance, a new organisation that raises capital for social enterprises, securing £890,000 in loan capital from five lenders. The Department of Work and Pensions also awarded the project £650,000.

By the end of 2009, Moneyline Cymru had made 465 loans with an average value of £372.

Support or care team of the year

Winner The Cyrenians, adults facing chronic exclusion project

This scheme has successfully provided day and night outreach support to rough sleepers, sex workers and others with especially complex needs.

In partnership with Newcastle Council, the Cyrenians is one of the Communities and Local Government department’s rough sleeping champions. All members of this team faced chronic exclusion in the past, and are now employed to seek out those most in need.

They address the underlying problems that have led to individuals’ isolation, and empower and motivate them to take advantage of opportunities that can enable them to integrate fully into society.

The ACE team provides a single point of entry, enabling customers to access an entire system of support through them. The project has informed government policy and it now receives mainstream funding from Newcastle Council and Newcastle primary care trust.

The Housing Heroes judges said the team’s ‘passion, dedication and knowledge of the often indefinable barriers these people face is unique’.

Inspirational mentor of the year

Winner Richard Husband, ICT support administrator, Worcester Community Housing

This is a new award for 2010 which recognises someone who has gone out of their way to develop and nurture others.

Its first winner is an IT administrator who voluntarily mentored 14 youngsters along with the Worcester Warriors, a premier league rugby union team, and the local police. He’s shown massive commitment while holding down his day job at the housing association.

The usually desk-based Richard Husband (pictured centre) took a giant leap outside his comfort zone in 2009 and gave up his time to mentor a group of young Worcester Community Housing residents in a youth engagement and citizenship project called ‘Walk like a warrior’.

It involved him donning his own trainers and learning how to play rugby with the 12 to-14-year-olds. The game also taught them about teamwork, fitness and healthy eating.

Mr Husband took 14 youngsters under his wing, working to help deter them from making negative life choices, reducing re-offending among those who had committed crimes in the past and preparing them to live healthy, independent lives.

Harry Orgee, the Warriors project coach, said through his mentoring Mr Husband had ‘supported and guided them through… an emotionally and physically challenging experience’.

Career development star of the year

Winner Dawn Aston-Adams, customer services manager, Wolverhampton Homes

This award goes to someone who has worked hard to develop their own career prospects by learning new skills and gaining qualifications.

This year’s winner is Dawn Aston-Adams, 44, who has completed a degree in housing while working four days a week and bringing up her young son.

Ms Aston-Adams, who worked her way up from the Youth Training Scheme at Dudley Council, which she joined as a teenager, launched the arm’s-length management organisation’s one-stop-shop in the city centre.

She designed its new look, separating cash and enquiry counters and installing computer kiosks - now 93 per cent of customers are seen within 10 minutes in comparison to 84 per cent a year ago.

HR team of the year

Winner Shepherds Bush Housing Group

In October 2006, Shepherds Bush Housing Group brought its human resources function back in-house, following five years outsourcing it.

The five-strong in-house team has delivered services more cost efficiently by moving its recruitment processes online and implementing training programmes for staff members [management development and customer care programmes].

Between 2009 and 2010 it invested more than £1,200 per employee on average.

When asked in 2006 to score their satisfaction with the HR department, the housing association staff gave it a paltry three out of 10. Now they rate it 8.5 out of 10.

Inspirational colleague of the year

Winner Francis Kabia, neighbourhood warden, Brent Housing Partnership

A real hero, Francis Kabia intervened when thieves were trying to steal heaters from a contractor’s van. They threatened to kill him - but Mr Kabia stood his ground and they fled.

Mr Kabia, who works as a Brent Housing Partnership neighbourhood warden on the South Kilburn estate in north west London, prides himself on going the ‘extra mile’. He helps resolve problems between noisy neighbours by providing low-level mediation, and reduces graffiti by catching people in the act.

In 2009 resident satisfaction climbed to 93 per cent from 69 per cent in 2005. Brent Housing Partnership acknowledges Mr Kabia helped it achieve this score by making residents feel secure in their own homes.

Development team of the year

Winner Derbyshire Dales Council

Working with many partners, this small rural local authority has consistently built more than 100 new homes a year. Our judges loved the partners’ creative approach to development, the way it assembled new sites and unlocked potential.

In 2009 the council and its partners completed 152 new homes, accounting for 34 per cent of all of the affordable homes built across Derbyshire.

As well as making new homes happen, Derbyshire Dales Council is also good at supporting the local construction industry. One judge said: ‘They’re exceptional - I wanted to steal all their ideas for our own organisation.’

Financial or procurement team of the year

Winner Wolverhampton Homes

This arm’s-length management organisation team’s approach focused on improving the local environment and boosting employment opportunities.

When a longstanding contract for maintenance provision, which was unpopular with tenants, ended in 2009, Wolverhampton Homes was presented with an ideal opportunity to empower tenants and involve them in the procurement and appointment of a new grounds maintenance contractor.

During the first six months of the new contract, tenant satisfaction increased from 73 per cent to 86 per cent. Nearly 400 sites identified by tenants have been improved, and 95 per cent of all maintenance jobs are local. All of this has been achieved at no extra cost.

Maintenance team of the year

Winner Wrekin Housing Trust

This team’s aim is to raise the bar on tenant satisfaction, while cutting costs and growing the business. During 2009 alone, the trust won two bids to deliver repairs contracts for two new customers, adding 2,200 properties to its portfolio.

For Wrekin’s managed services team, only right-first-time will do, and despite the tough economic climate it is dedicated to its apprenticeship scheme. In 2009 it recruited five apprentices.

Our judges admired Wrekin’s ambition to become a world-class maintenance contractor.

IT team of the year

Winner Cadarn Housing Group

Cadarn Housing Group developed a cutting-edge software system called ‘sprint’ which helps support agencies to record and evaluate outcomes for their clients, in order to reassure their Supporting People funders that their money has been spent effectively.

Sprint has become the leading supported housing monitoring software in Wales and is now being marketed in England, Scotland and Ireland. More than 60 social landlords have already acquired the system and it looks like many others will be buying it in future.

Inspirational tenant of the year

Winner Cherie Tinenti, Charnwood Neighbourhood Housing

Charnwood Neighbourhood Housing tenant, 31-year-old Cherie Tinenti and her late husband Marios were the founding members of residents’ association the Loughborough Town Centre Collective.

The couple set up the association at the beginning of 2008 with the aim of making a stand against anti-social be-haviour in the centre of Leicestershire town Loughborough. Their lobbying has led to the installation of CCTV, an in-creased police presence, landscaping of communal grounds, and new benches, bins and community notice boards.

In early 2009, Mr and Mrs Tinenti provided evidence and statements in a successful police operation to close a neighbouring property that was being used as a crack house. Mrs Tinenti’s courage and resilience led to her being awarded a national Home Office 2009 Community Crime Fighter award

Inspirational leader of the year

Winner Neil Biddiscombe, procurement manager Advantage South West

Mr Biddiscome has done a great job convincing 15 landlords to band together to procure their services in a more cost effective way.

Owned by Devon & Cornwall Housing, North Devon Homes, Ocean Housing and Yarlington Housing, AdvantageSW is a procurement consortium which was set up in 2005. Mr Biddiscombe – its only employee – joined in January 2008. In two years, he has led the consortium to savings of almost £6 million on a spend of £28 million. He helped members when making decisions about awarding contracts, enabling them to find common ground.

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