More than a landlord
Our first priority at settle will always be to invest in our properties, to provide homes that are safe and comfortable for residents to live in.
As a social purpose organisation, the support we provide goes beyond being a landlord. We want to help residents to have the confidence, resilience and skills to live the life you choose, and to invest in the neighbourhoods in which we work, to create places that are good for everyone to live in. We have always been an organisation that is committed to being more than a landlord and providing extra support when we can to help customers stay comfortably in their homes. During the past year we have been reviewing the ways colleagues across our teams are working, and the way we describe our services, to make sure that is it easier for residents to access extra support from us, especially at challenging times, so that we can help in a better way.
We think our work can be described around three main services, that lead to the settle comfort standard.
The settle comfort standard – supporting all residents to have a home you can live in comfortably.
As a minimum standard we provide all residents with a safe, good-quality home that meets all regulatory requirements. We recognise that some customers might need a little bit more from us to live comfortably in their home, and that a comfort standard for one resident will be different for another resident. So, we will tailor our work and decisions according to the needs of each individual resident and what is needed to make sure they can live comfortably in their home.
settle services
settle services - being an excellent landlord and delivering effortless transactions for all of our residents
settle plus
Additional support tailored to individual residents’ needs to help them live comfortably in their homes, either provided directly by settle colleagues or by connecting customers with our partners who are better able to provide specialist support during the time they need it. One of the ways we do this is through the work of our tenancy support team.
settle neighbourhoods
Our commitment to invest in the neighbourhoods in which we work, to ensure they are good places to live in. Where we own a high number of the properties in a neighbourhood, we’ll do much of this directly. Where we own fewer homes, we’ll try to influence and support others to do this.
Investment in neighbourhoods
We now have a regeneration team in place, who will continue to work with colleagues across settle to support residents on large investment projects in neighbourhoods. Here is a summary of two neighbourhoods we are supporting in this way.
John Barker Place, Hitchin, Hertfordshire
John Barker Place, Hitchin, Hertfordshire In our customer annual report last year we mentioned the regeneration of John Barker Place in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, that would be our flagship regeneration project.
We have:
- Opened the new children’s play area we had committed to providing in summer 2020
- Started building work as planned on new homes and shops in January 2021
- Recently contacted residents nearby to understand how we can best continue investing in the local area, including the potential redevelopment of other new affordable homes.
Campfield Way and Highover Road, Letchworth, Hertfordshire
In summer 2021 we contacted residents at Campfield Way and Highover Road to begin discussions about the redevelopment of these homes, which we were built in the late 1940s and expected to last 60 years. We will continue to work closely with residents and the wider community as we progress these proposals.
Social value
As a social purpose organisation, the support we provide goes beyond being a landlord. One of the ways we do this is through the specialist additional support our tenancy support team provide to help residents who are struggling to maintain their tenancies. These residents will be dealing with all sorts of challenges – perhaps with their mental health, abuse, loneliness amd isolation, drug and alcohol dependencies or debt. Our colleagues provide intensive 1:1 support to help these residents get to a place where they can sustain their tenancies and move forward with their lives. This might include helping to build their confidence, manage their money or get back into work, either providing this directly or working jointly with partner agencies. We calculate the impact of this social purpose support using a method developed by the independent body, HACT. The methodology is widely used across the housing sector to measure the impact of activities from employment through to health. By placing monetary values on the benefits to the individual and impact on wider services we can quantify the value of our work. The equivalent social value we generated through activities that support customers’ wellbeing, employment, health and education was £1.9 million in 2020/21, through providing specific support to 39 residents, where the support we provided was successfully concluded during this period. As we emerge from the pandemic, we can see that the resilience of residents we support is low and their needs are becoming more complex. We will continue to do all we can to help residents and make sure they can access the best support possible.
In 2020/21 we committed more than £130,000 to charities, voluntary groups and social partnerships including to:
- Citizens Advice
- Foundations 4 Work
- Compassionate neighbours
Foundations 4 Work
In 2018/19 we created Foundations 4 work with our partners Create Community Network, funding a dedicated mentor to help settle residents find and maintain work. Last year we continued to support 51 residents – 17 of whom were new referrals. We’re delighted that three residents were mentored into employment and three into volunteering roles.
Community garden project
Last year we supported the creation of a community garden initiative in partnership with Create Network and Green Care at Norton CIC. We provided an area of land that would not otherwise be used, to be developed into an outdoor learning area and community enterprise. Participants including settle residents who wish to take part will be supported to gain valuable skills through growing and selling produce from the site.
Compassionate neighbours
Through this partnership we support the Letchworth-based Garden House Hospice to connect settle residents living in any location with volunteers to help reduce the loneliness they might be experiencing. Last year, 14 residents were supported in this way.
Safe and well visits
We partner with Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue to visit older residents and offer advice on keeping safe and well at home. Often this includes conversations about residents’ wellbeing and helps us to see where we might be able to provide additional support, for example to help reduce loneliness. These visits were paused during the pandemic and restarted in September 2021, with our own teams visiting then referring to Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue if needed.
Working with local suppliers
We work with many local suppliers and large national organisations. As part of our tender process, during 2019/20 we introduced the requirement that 0.5% of the contract value is returned to us to extend our social purpose activity. It was our intention that during last year we would confirm the details of how these funds will be allocated. We paused this due to the pandemic, as this prevented much of the activity we think the funds could be used for from going ahead. The funds are still available and we will confirm during 2021/22 how they will be spent, with the intention still being that they are used to support residents in our communities.