Supporting Sustainable Tenancies

We aim to offer services and support so that our tenants are happy, empowered and living in comfortable and manageable homes in sustainable places and we are committed to helping tenants sustain their tenancy.

Here’s how we are doing…

Performance

2.94% Rent Arrears As A % Of The Rent Due

93.72% Satisfaction With The Allocations And Lettings Service

93.81% Satisfaction With Aids And Adaptations Service

87.69% Satisfaction With The Overall Quality Of Their Home

Key stats

4,142 Housing Applications Were Processed

52,885 Bids Were Received From Prospective And Existing Tenants

875 homes were let and 86.1% of those homes were for those with the highest housing

85% Homes Let with existing major adaptations went to applicants who needed that specific adaption to live independently

1.43m Financial Gains Achieved For Tenants Including Welfare Benefits, Grant Funding And Affordable Credit

644 Support Interventions Delivered To Help Tenants Sustain Their Tenancies

The year in review

During the year we completed over 4,500 tenancy visits to homes. Our tenancy visit programme helps us to ensure homes are safe and in good condition, and helps us understand whether you or those living in your home need any support. Our Housing Advisors have updated over 3,500 records helping us to understand and better respond to your needs, vulnerabilities and contact preferences.

We are committed to supporting you when you need it most and, in a year when our communities continued to face real hardship, we have set up a hub on our website so you know what support is available to help you save and manage your money. Our team of advisors have also been on hand to offer practical guidance and support. In the last year they have helped over 400 tenants and generated £1.43m in financial gains, including welfare benefits, grant funding, and affordable credit. Our Livin Futures advisors have also supported 352 customers into work and training reaching a total of 3,000 customers in the lifetime of our Livin Futures programme.

As the housing crisis continues, we are always looking for new ways to provide the homes you need in the areas you are proud to call home. We are very pleased to have developed over 260 homes this year despite the challenges the construction industry is experiencing. We are working with local authorities, partners and developers to create more homes in the local area to reduce the number of people on housing waiting lists. In addition to this we are adapting our homes and looking at home swap arrangements, to ensure you can live in a home suitable for your needs.

We listened  (Complaints)

You told us that we did not keep you up to date while you were waiting for aids and adaptations to your homes.

We acted 

We created a monitoring process for better oversight of outstanding cases to keep you updated. We worked with our partners at Durham County Council to receive monthly progress reports to allow our cases to be updated and so updates can be given at first point of contact. As a result of actions we have implemented, satisfaction levels have increased by 15% from 83.3% to 98.2% within the year.

We listened (Customer Voice – Cost of Living survey)

You told us that you would like more information to be available about the support we offer for financial hardship.

We acted 

We created a new webpage, a financial wellbeing toolkit and a social media campaign to promote our support offer. We revised our rent arrears procedure to strengthen our approach to arrears prevention and the support we provide.

As a result of our campaign, we have helped 958 tenants to access £1.43m in grant funding, welfare benefits and affordable credit.

An example of this is that we have been able to assist one of our tenants to increase housing benefit entitlement and drastically reduce care costs. This resulted in her improving her financial situation by £23K in 12 months.

How to contact

contactus@livin.co.uk

www.durhamkeyoptions.co.uk

0800 587 4538