As a Housing Manager supporting Vulnerable adults, I witness the good work our Housing Support officers do every day. However, the challenges they are facing during this difficult time and the ways they are finding to overcome the obstacles is truly humbling.
Many of our tenants are struggling with the lockdown and are feeling isolated and lonely, the Support officers are calling them daily by telephone and having a chat and making sure they are ok. The feedback I am getting from tenants is that this is really appreciated.
During the phone call we can establish if there is anything we need to be doing to keep this tenant safe and make it easier for them to follow the government guidelines to stay at home.
Some of the challenges the team have faced this week include:
- Finding Foodbanks that are open and can help, as they themselves are struggling with supply and demand. The Service Co Ordinator at the CVS in South Derbyshire has been amazing at helping us with this.
- Medical assistance for the vulnerable high-risk tenants that need to go into hospital. All of us at Greater Places would like to thank all the medical teams and ambulance crews at Derby Hospital for their help and support. A special thankyou to the local Paramedic that is working so hard in this difficult time to give the best advice she can to those people that are vulnerable and feeling ill.
- Getting Top ups for Utilities has been more difficult, so good news that our tenants can now ring and top up with their payment card over the phone.
I also wanted to mention that even though this is a scary and uncertain time for our staff and tenants, we are hearing lots of nice stories of people helping each other and having fun.
One tenant is using the time to give his bathroom a spruce up and another family have been busy painting rocks to put outside to cheer up the Postman and delivery men….
That’s it for now but thanks to everyone that has helped us to support others this week. Please Stay Home, Protect the NHS and Save Lives….
