Access to Housing and Choice Based
Lettings
Leeds Tenants Federation is calling for:
·
More assistance to
enable vulnerable people to use Choice Based Lettings.
·
A specialist service to
help disabled people find a rented home
·
A review of the
three-month time limit for people in priority needs
·
The inclusion of floor
plans and room size details in the Choice Based Lettings advertisements
·
More involvement by
residents associations in welcoming prospective new tenants to communities
More
assistance to enable vulnerable people to use Choice Based Lettings.
Access to all council
housing and a growing number of housing association properties in Leeds is
through Choice Based Lettings. One of the major concerns Leeds Tenants
Federation has about Choice Based Lettings is the position of vulnerable people
who may not be able to bid for properties.
We believe that far more needs to be done by the Council’s Leeds Homes
team to assess the needs of vulnerable people and to make sure that there are
advocates who can assist them with the bidding process.
A
specialist service to help disabled people find a rented home
We believe that the
accommodation needs of people with long term disabilities need to be handled in
a separate manner from those of other customers. We support the development of an integrated disabled peoples
housing service and we feel that the council’s Lettings Policy should
compliment this. This was the view expressed in our Disabled People’s Question
Time event in summer 2005, attended by 120 people with disabilities. There are many arguments to support the
creation of a separate Lettings Policy for people with disabilities: the
obstacles they face to entering into a bidding process, the nature of the property
they wish to access i.e. adapted / ground floor, and the long term nature of
their priority which means that three monthly reviews of this customer group
are unhelpful.
The inclusion of floor plans and room
size details in the Choice Based Lettings advertisements
We want residents to get as
much information about prospective accommodation and prospective neighbourhoods
as they can, so they can make the right choices. We would like to see the use of web cameras to give internal and
external property viewing on internet sites, and floor plans with room size
information in print adverts but recognise that this is a longer term
development. There is potential to
expand the descriptions of the properties available to bidders without great
investment simply by giving fuller details in the property advert. “One large and one small bedroom” is a more
useful description than simply “two bedrooms”. We believe the Council should
encourage housing organisations operating CBL to give the fullest possible description
of room and garden sizes and any pertinent details of the property layout that
may help customers make informed choices.
We also believe that more information about the facilities in the local
neighbourhood would benefit customers.
More involvement by residents
associations in welcoming prospective new tenants to communities
We believe that prospective
tenants can be helped to settle in a community if the local residents
association is able to greet them and to help them find their way about. We are pioneering a scheme called Meet N’
Greet in which trained local residents representatives attend accompanied
viewings and are able to give the prospective tenant information about the
local services, facilities, and tell them more about the neighbourhood. This scheme is being piloted with four
housing organisations at present and we would like to see this simple but
effective idea taken up across Leeds. For more information on the Meet’n’Greet scheme go here.