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Social housing resilience group formed in Scotland to tackle coronavirus
Housing groups and government bodies in Scotland have set up a ‘social housing resilience group’ in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
Convened by the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA), the resilience group aims to deal with the “evolving and significant challenges” facing the social housing sector as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.
The group was set up following conversations between the Scottish government, Scottish Housing Regulator and SFHA.
The social housing resilience group comprises:
- SFHA
- Scottish government
- NHS Health Scotland
- Scottish Housing Regulator
- Wheatley Group
- Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations
- Chartered Institute of Housing Scotland
- Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers
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The group will communicate daily via video calls and aims to gather information, provide an early warning system for problems and identify high-level issues and take action on them.
It has also produced a framework to support social landlords in decision-making on service provision and to help with essential travel for those delivering services during the pandemic.
It comes after it was revealed that a WhatsApp group had been set up between 140 of the sector’s chief executives, in which they can share concerns and best practice to combat the impact of the virus.
The National Housing Federation, which represents nearly 800 housing associations, published a briefing on Tuesday outlining what housing associations should prioritise during the coronavirus outbreak.
Sally Thomas, chief executive at SFHA, said: “The social housing sector has a critical role to play in responding to the coronavirus outbreak. Social landlords provide housing and services that are vital for people’s health, well-being and safety, and this must be able to continue.
“The social housing resilience group will allow us to respond to the outbreak as it develops and ensure that we can work together to minimise the impact on the most vulnerable people in our communities as well as on social landlords.”
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