Facebook Helps to Communicate with Younger Tenants
A Doncaster housing organisation has tapped into Facebook to communicate with its younger tenants.
St Leger Homes of Doncaster, which manages just over 21,000 properties for Doncaster Council, has worked with the Doncaster Young Tenants' Action Group (DYTAG) to launch the initiative.
It means that young tenants - either at home, work or in the library - can easily tap into the DYTAG page and find out what is happening with the group.
St Leger Homes is working with DYTAG to help shape the services it offers. Nyssa Hird, St Leger Homes' diversity officer, said:
"We want to make it as easy as possible for young tenants to get involved and have a say on how we can shape services.
This is an ideal way to do so. It means they can find out information and ask questions 24-hours-a-day."
For more information either ring Nyssa Hird on 01302 862624, or on Facebook search 'DYTAG'.
Council Calls for Rent Reductions
Manchester City Council wrote to Housing Minister Margaret Beckett calling for housing association tenants to receive the same level of rent support as those living in homes owned by the Council.
The rent increase for more than 17,000 Manchester Council tenants will be cut by almost half thanks to extra help from the Government.
Councillors decided in March to increase rents by 5.6% and tenants started paying the higher rents last week. But extra funding to compensate for inflation changes and reduce the impact of rent rises this year means the increase for 2009/10 can be cut to 2.9% with no reduction in services. City Council tenants will get letters shortly telling them how the change will affect them.
Although councils have been offered support, this has not been extended to housing associations and the Council believes that all social housing tenants should get the same benefit.
Councillor Paul Andrews, Manchester City Council's Executive Member for Neighbourhood Services, said:
"The Council has more than 17,000 homes in Manchester and so this will be felt widely.
"Unfortunately, this reduction doesn't cover the rents of housing association tenants, including transferred stock.
"I have already written to the Housing Minister asking for help to reduce rents for social housing tenants and I am extremely disappointed that so far I have not received a positive response. But we'll continue to lobby Government to give help to all social housing tenants in Manchester."