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The coronavirus crisis has brought many challenges for the sector, not least dealing with families who need a new home. Richard Clark explains the strategy at PA Housing
Last month, the government urged people not to move home while emergency stay-at-home measures are in place, to limit the spread of coronavirus.
At PA Housing, we’ve been reviewing our approach to re-lets during the past few weeks, and we’ve already paused our day-to-day letting activities.
We’re contacting all residents who have been hoping to get the keys to their new homes to let them know this is the case.
While we are aware how frustrating and disappointing this is for them, we have decided that the personal interaction involved in the process of letting properties is just not appropriate right now.
That said, we are continuing our work with our local authority partners to ensure those who are facing homelessness have access to a place they can call home during this lockdown period.
Councils are under pressure to provide accommodation to all rough sleepers, and we’re working with them and with individual applicants, doing all we can to keep families and vulnerable people out of temporary accommodation, while also taking necessary precautions to protect them and our team members.
“We are continuing our work with our local authority partners to ensure those who are facing homelessness have access to a place they can call home during this lockdown period”
As an organisation, we have around 40 unoccupied ‘ready to let’ properties, as well as an existing list of around 25 approved applicants who may be facing homelessness and could, in theory, move straight in.
Up to 20 of our ‘ready to let’ properties will be in our new build schemes across London and the south east, where we are making homes available for applicants living in temporary accommodation, to assist our local authority partners and provide some certainty to our newest residents during this most uncertain of times.
During our phone conversations with applicants, we cover their potential exposure to COVID-19 and discuss any symptoms they may be experiencing.
Obviously, if a family or individual should be self-isolating, they won’t be able to move – whether the home is empty or not.
We’re also finding out whether applicants are able to extend notice on their current property and can therefore remain where they are until the government guidance is updated.
Despite desperately wanting a more secure living situation, we’re finding that some individuals simply cannot face the upheaval of taking on a new tenancy at this moment in time. Where this is the case, we’re working to support individuals, keeping our lines of communication open.
When we are helping residents to move into their new homes, we have strategies in place to stagger handovers to ensure minimal contact with others, and to maintain social distancing guidelines.
“Despite desperately wanting a more secure living situation, we’re finding that some individuals simply cannot face the upheaval of taking on a new tenancy at this moment in time”
We have operational protocols which mean that a large amount of the work that needs to be done to handover a property can be done electronically. When colleagues do attend sign-ups, they will be wearing gloves and carrying hand sanitiser, and, unless they are vulnerable and need the support of a carer, applicants will attend the handover alone.
Our approach is under constant review, but, at the moment, we are not seeking nominations for void properties that require work to be done before they are re-let.
We believe it would be unreasonable to seek nominations from our local authority partners – who are already working so hard to house those most in-need – when we do not know when lockdown restrictions will be lifted, and repairs and maintenance that were in progress can be completed.
As the weeks progress, we’ll be in touch with applicants who are at risk of homelessness, but have been in self-isolation, to help them to get ready to move.
We’ll also be trying to give hope to all of our approved applicants, letting them know that, once the current restrictions are lifted, they will once again be able to look forward to a fresh start in a new home.
Richard Clark, HomeMoves manager, PA Housing
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