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From the frontline – safer neighbourhoods team leader Amanda Fulcher
Amanda Fulcher, safer neighbourhoods team leader at County Durham Housing Group, discusses dealing with anti-social behaviour, abolishing Universal Credit and spending more than 30 years in the sector
What does your job involve?
We support victims of anti-social behaviour, from noise nuisance to threats of violence and actual violence, plus domestic abuse and hate crime.
We have powers to take positive action against perpetrators, including mediation, warnings and, in the worst cases, evictions or injunctions through court action. We work with partners including the police, fire service, county council, courts and specialist services.
How did you get into housing?
I was given the opportunity to do my work experience at Easington District Council way back in 1988 – it was only a week but I loved it.
Being part of an organisation that provides a first home to single people or families, allowing them to start a life together, was really heartwarming. I’m still as passionate about housing as I was back then.
What’s the best part of your job?
I enjoy planning actions to deal with the various problems we encounter and supporting victims of anti-social behaviour or domestic abuse.
When a tenant tells you that they now feel safe in their own home and that you’ve changed their life for the better, it’s always rewarding.
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What’s the worst part?
Evicting perpetrators of anti-social behaviour. I think of evictions as a failure because I would much prefer to change the behaviour of the person than move the problem on to another community or neighbourhood.
What would you change about the housing sector?
I’d like to see social care working more closely with housing. This would allow us to be more integrated in terms of safeguarding adults and children.
I feel that housing is often forgotten about, but we hold a vast array of information that could be the missing pieces of the jigsaw.
If you could be prime minister for the day, what would you do?
Abolish Universal Credit. It causes a multitude of problems across the whole of housing and has a detrimental impact on our customers.
It’s particularly serious when tenants are dealing with any combination of physical disabilities, mental well-being and financial worries.
What’s the most private thing you’d be willing to admit to a colleague?
There is nothing private about me. I really am an open book and my colleagues know this.
Some of my team have worked together for too many years to mention.
