SUMMER 2008

Tenants Survey

have your say

Decent Homes

FAQs

Focus On

estateenvironment

The magazine for Harrow Council’s tenants and leaseholders

Welcome to a bumper editionof Homing In!

The theme of this issue is the estateenvironment. Over the past year we haveinvested a lot of time and effort inlistening to your views and making oftensmall changes to your estate that havemade big differences – a new play areaon Grange Farm Estate; new fencing atStonegrove – read all about what’s beenachieved and the plans we have for thecoming year in the centre pages.Looking back over the past year wehave been working hard to deliver goodservices to you and have improved ourperformance in key areas including rentcollection, getting void properties letquickly and getting day-to-day repairsdone more quickly. We have receivedmany letters of praise about Kier andwhere we have received complaints wehave worked hard with Kier to sort outthe problems by making changes to theway we deliver our services.A new financial year brings changesto our Resident Services team, as itevolves into new specialist teams ableto deal with your queries or problems.This will help to improve our customerservice further and deal with your issuesin a timely and efficient way.I remind you again of the importanceof paying your rent on time. Are youclaiming all the benefits you are entitledto? Phone your rent recovery team foradvice and assistance.I’d like to say farewell to CouncillorCamilla Bath, who has stepped down asPortfolio Holder for Housing, andwelcome Councillor Barry Macleod-Cullinane as our new Portfolio Holder forAdults and Housing, who along with hisCabinet assistants, Councillors JeanLammiman and Yogesh Teli, will bemaking sure you receive good qualityhousing services.A year-long review of Resident Services isnow complete.The review looked at how the landlordservice is organised to provide the bestpossible service to you. It considered themany and varied views of residentsexpressed through either customersatisfaction surveys, complaints orinformally at evening meetings etc.What has been coming through loudand clear is the need to provide improvedtelephone services, access to housingstaff and a customer friendly and timelyresponse to issues raised.Taking these views into account theservice has been rearranged into 4specific service areas, providing amore focused and specialist approach.These are:• Anti social behaviour team;• Rent recovery team;• Tenancy management team; and• Community and investment team.To ensure that we work more efficientlyand effectively in managing our serviceswe are also investing in new computersystems.For information about who yourhousing officer is, visit our website at

www.harrow.gov.uk/housingofficer

Do you want to avoid legal action andpossibly eviction by getting help?Harrow Council is working inpartnership with Harrow CAB to providetenants with access to independentmoney advice. So, if you have debtsaffecting your ability to pay we canarrange for an advisor to help in thefollowing ways:• Ensure you have maximised yourincome;• Check that you are claiming all thewelfare benefits you are entitled;• Help you to prepare a financialstatement; and• Negotiation of sustainable repaymentsto your creditors.If you think this service can helpyou, contact your Housing Officer on

0208 424 1129/1173/1125

to arrangea referral for a dedicated appointment.There are some things you can putoff for another day…

Paying your rent isn’t one of them…Don’t delay pick upthe phone.

The Council has successfully evicted atenant in Jordan Close because of anti-social behaviour and rent arrears.We had received numerouscomplaints from local residents about thetenant causing unacceptable levels of anti-social behaviour including keepingdangerous dogs at the property.After obtaining a Possession Orderfrom Watford County Court in March2007 to evict the tenant, the eviction wasfinally secured in March 2008 after legalproceedings and appeals by the tenant.We would like to thank the localresidents, whose lives were made a“living hell”, for all their help andassistance in securing the eviction.Harrow Council will not tolerate anti-social behaviour that blights propertiesand affects a whole area.

So pleaseremember you will be in breach of yourtenancy or lease and risk eviction, if youkeep a dog in your flat or maisonette.

If you want to report anti-socialbehaviour, please contact the anti-socialbehaviour team on

0208-420-9615.

Update on changes tothe

Housing Service

Gwyneth

Allen

Divisional Director Adultsand Housing Services

2HOMING IN

Tell us what you think call 020 8424 1717

Rent First!

Are you finding it difficult to pay your rent on time?

Anti-Social tenant evicted

HOMING IN3

I would like to take this opportunity tointroduce myself to you as your newPortfolio Holder for Adults and HousingServices. Over the coming weeks andmonths I will be getting to know moreabout how we provide services to youand what the issues are, so that we canmake improvements. I will be workingclosely with my two Cabinet Assistantson this.The focus of this edition is the estateenvironment. For the many of you livingon estates across the borough, you willhave noticed some of the good work thathas been done to help make your estatea better and safer place to live, such asimproving parking and garages, playareas and fencing. More work isprogrammed over the coming year so if your estate has a Tenants and ResidentsAssociation (TRA) and you think there areimprovements to be made, contact eitheryour TRA or HFTRA with your idea. If youare not part of a TRA talk to yourHousing Officer who will ensure that youare consulted about any changesproposed. An exciting project that is juststarting is the regeneration of Mill FarmClose estate. Officers are working withresidents of the estate to select ahousing association partner. We willkeep you informed of our progress inimproving the estate for those residents.A big issue for us in Harrow is that wehave nearly 1,300 families living inovercrowded conditions whilst waiting fora suitable home to become available,whilst we also have people struggling tolive on their own in large houses. Thisyear we have some dedicated funding tohelp people to ‘downsize’. See page 10for more details. You can contact me c/oRoom 102 at the Civic Centre, by phoneon

020-8424-1852

or by email to

barry@belmont.bz

Cllr

Barry Macleod-Cullinane

Adult Services andHousing Portfolio Holder

Anti-social tenant

evicted

Have you tried to contact AccessHarrow to report a repair and hadto wait a long time to speak toan operator?

The Council has reviewed thenumbers of phone calls it gets and atwhat times and has identified that reallybusy periods are early mornings up toabout 11am and Monday and Tuesdaymornings especially.We want you get through to us atAccess Harrow on your repairs issueswith as little delay as possible. Bycalling later in the morning or during theafternoon, we should be able to answeryour call more quickly, and get on withdealing with your repair. Our telephonenumber for repairs is

0208 424 1475;

alternatively email Access Harrow at

housing@harrow.gov.uk

Contacting AccessHarrow about a Repair

Help us to Help You

or email paul.ocallaghan@harrow.gov.uk

It is upsetting knowing that customers are waiting to be answered and we can't get to the calls fast enough to meet the demandIf calls were spread out over the day it would enable us to provide a moreefficient service As an advisor it is frustrating, you want to provide the best service youcan to your customers. It is always very busy in the mornings and lessbusy in the afternoons