The vaccine roll-out is lifting spirits – but there is still a long road ahead in 2021

During the past 10 months, everyone in the housing association sector has done their absolute utmost to ensure the safety and well-being of their customers – many at the expense of their own.

Since March, colleagues across the sector have made hundreds of thousands of well-being calls to customers in order to ensure they’ve had the support they need.

Those calls have led to lives being protected, livelihoods and jobs being protected, incomes being protected and incomes being increased.

Thanks to colleagues’ efforts, thousands of individuals and families have been protected from the immense emotional, health, well-being and financial stresses caused by COVID-19.

We don’t always get things right in the sector, and when we don’t, we need to hold our hands up, accept it, learn from it and improve. But what I would never accept is that we don’t care.

At Home Group, for example, in the first few months of COVID-19 taking hold, colleagues made more than 35,000 calls to customers potentially in need of support. From those calls came a high influx of referrals to our financial inclusion team.

Prior to lockdown the team were receiving a handful of referrals per day. They have been dealing with between 12 and 32 per day for the past 10 months, with no signs of that slowing.

The support customers have needed has been wide-ranging. Early on it was mainly for Universal Credit claims and Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) payments for self-employed customers. Then we got referrals for people who’d lost the job that they’d had for 25 years and didn’t know the first thing about benefits or putting together a CV.

Currently, as well as the above, we are also seeing an increase in older people struggling to keep up with bills and others concerned about their increased bills over winter. We are helping with that in collaboration with partners like Connect for Help and Home Energy Scotland.

Since March we have received close to 3,000 referrals from customers in need of support.

The emotional distress plainly evident in the conversations that colleagues have had with customers has been way beyond any training provided. Nevertheless, they have managed those conversations admirably, while also delivering some brilliant outcomes for customers.

In the first six months of the pandemic, our financial inclusion team has increased payment arrangements for our customers by £165,000; increased customer income by £810,000; reduced customer outgoings by £125,000; and retrieved £25,000 of payments through backdated benefits.

These are figures that you are likely to see across many other housing associations.

The reduction in the level of stress for customers that this work achieves is a little more difficult to capture. However, the example below gives an indication.

Terry (name changed) was referred to our inclusion team after a well-being call. Terry explained to the team that he’d been diagnosed with three types of early onset dementia. He’d worked his whole life but after his diagnosis was forced to leave his job, claim Employment and Support Allowance and have his wife become his carer.

Terry’s wife left the marital home during lockdown which meant he needed to claim Universal Credit. The impact of this emotional trauma and his dementia meant he’d struggled with the claims process, as well as council tax letters from the council. Terry’s wife leaving meant he had an ‘untidy tenancy’ and Universal Credit was only paying half of his rent. Following a benefit check, Terry and his new carer worked with our team to challenge the decisions made by the local authority and the Department for Work and Pensions. As a result, he received an increased annual income of £3,600. Terry was so grateful he came to speak to the board to tell us about the “fantastic” service he’d received.

There’s a reason why the majority of colleagues across the sector have not been furloughed during the pandemic. It’s because they do things like this. The past 10 months have shown the sector at its best.

The roll-out of the vaccine has lifted spirits, and we’ve needed that. However, there’s still a long road ahead for customers before we get back to some form of normality.

Until that time comes, we will continue to support them through the crisis, and we won’t make a drama out of it.

Mark Henderson, chief executive, Home Group