Over the last year, KCAH has seen 32 tenants in our Access Project move on - most of them successfully. This is an amazing achievement. Nathan Erasmus’s report indicates that we are putting more of our resources in trying to support our tenants and our hope is that this will contribute to more successes with Access Project tenants finding more secure, settled accommodation. That is what we are all about. The demand for accommodation for single, homeless people is such that we will be opening an eleventh house in August. But we are receiving no more funding to do this and we still have only two staff workers responsible for what will soon be 49 tenants, all of whom have some level of support needs.

On our Advice Section, Patricia is now our sole staff member, dealing with housing advice and welfare benefits issues. We do not have the funding for a second staff member at this time although we are still striving to find the funding to then be able to employ a debt/welfare benefits adviser. In the last financial year, we saw 554 new clients walk through our door, compared to 563 the year before. The difference now is, we have only one staff member dedicated to seeing those clients. Patricia’s workload has therefore increased beyond stretching point and so it is vital that we secure new funding to at least employ a part-time member of staff.

Consequently, you can no doubt sense that feeling of urgency in this article ! Those of us involved in KCAH already are passionate about the work that goes on here. It is definitely a Charity worth investing in. And we want to start thinking BIG !

Matt Hatton

Operational Director

Housing Advice News

The Housing Action Service is as busy as ever with a wide range of housing advice issues and welfare benefit issues arising. There are increasing numbers of families losing their homes due to mortgage repossession and they cannot afford the mortgage repayments. There has now been a consultation on the Mortgage Arrears Protocol whereby the results of the consultation will enable the Civil Justice Council to try and prevent unnecessary litigation when it comes to mortgage arrears. There will be more communication between parties to resolve outstanding issues with mortgage arrears.

The national roll out of the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) as the new form of housing benefit assistance for private sector tenants began on 7^th April 2008. Basically this means that tenants in the private sector will have to be paid the housing benefit money direct so that they can in turn pay their landlords. Many private landlords in Kingston are unwilling to take on tenants that are claiming housing benefit as it is paid in arrears. However the payment rates have gone up slightly and this may be an incentive for landlords in the private sector to take on some of these tenants as long as the agreement between the two is a workable one.

Client Success Stories

Mr Dean is 57. He left Devon after his marriage broke up and he came to Kingston. He was rough sleeping for a while in Kingston and he approached KCAH for assistance with housing. We managed to find him a space in a local hostel and we also helped him apply to the Kingston Council Housing Register for Choice Based Lettings. He was also interviewed for the Access Project and after spending a month in the hostel he was offered a place in the project. Mr Dean had only been in the project a month and was offered a sheltered studio flat with Kingston council. He moved to the studio flat and also got a job, which was really good progress on his part !

Mrs Zuhair and her husband are both over 70 and are disabled. They live in a housing association flat in Kingston. Their kitchen and bathroom were under a lot of disrepair and Mrs Zuhair approached KCAH for assistance to get the housing association to do some repairs. We contacted the housing association to help the couple and they offered to fit a new kitchen and a new bathroom for our clients ! Mrs Zuhair was very pleased with the work as she got to choose the colour scheme as well for the kitchen and bathroom and also bought new appliances for her kitchen !

Mrs Tanner is over 70 years old. She was living in sheltered accommodation in Surbiton and applied for a transfer to Sutton. She was offered another sheltered flat in Sutton but she could not pack her possessions as she is frail and hard of hearing so cannot use a telephone to arrange people to help her do the packing. Mrs Tanner asked Age Concern in Sutton for help. They agreed to help her once she had moved to Sutton but could not help her while she was still a Kingston resident. We contacted the Surbiton Carers Network and they were able to help Mrs Tanner pack her belongings and they also managed to get her a carpet fitter who removed her carpet in her old flat and re-laid it at the Sutton property. She is very happy at her new accommodation.

Mr Howard was a tenant in the Access Project and he was offered temporary accommodation by Richmond Council in the private sector. This would enable him to look after his children for part of the week as one of them is disabled. Mr Howard had no furniture and we helped him apply for a Community Care grant from the Social Fund. He was paid £650 from the Social Fund which is a high amount given the fact that applicants do not get high amounts of money due to budget constraints.

Patricia Nabatanzi

Senior Housing and Welfare Benefits Adviser