Two Rivers highlight growing concern over possible cuts in support services for its tenants

Published by Jenny George for Two Rivers Housing in Housing and also in Central Government, Communities, Environment, Health, Local Government

Two Rivers Housing is planning how reduced funding from Gloucestershire County Council could affect its tenants, many of whom live in its supported housing schemes.

The company has been consulting with staff and residents in preparation for information from the County Council on how services for vulnerable people across the County will be run in the future.

The company, which manages over 3,700 homes across Gloucestershire and Herefordshire, provides a supported housing service to 1,100 homes situated in the Forest of Dean District. The service is directly funded by Gloucestershire County Council and is primarily aimed at people who are over 60 years old and/or have a disability.

Jon Coe, Director of Customer Service at Two Rivers Housing said “With all the publicity around ongoing cuts in public spending, we do not yet know from Gloucestershire County Council exactly how our services will be affected, although we are aware that budgets at a local level could be cut.

The draft Gloucestershire Supporting People strategy published by the County Council in August 2010 does highlight their commitment to provide services to vulnerable people on a “needs basis”. However, given the subsequent changes announced by central government in October, this service is now competing in an even tougher financial climate with other services on a County level for funding.

Two Rivers is therefore looking at how it can best continue to provide services to vulnerable people in the future in line with Gloucestershire County Council’s draft guidance and available funding. We understand that our tenants who may be affected will need reassurance and we are committed to keeping them informed as soon as we have further information available.”

Rachel Smith, Head of Housing added: “At the moment tenants living in our supported schemes receive a visit from a Support Worker but, from the limited information available at the moment from the County Council, we believe this is unlikely to continue for all our tenants in the present format. We appreciate that this is an uncertain time for our tenants, their families and our staff which is why we are continuing to hold meetings with both residents and staff; however until we have received more information, we are unable to confirm at this stage what support services will be available.” 

The organisation is keen to protect the welfare of its tenants which is why it started a review of its supported housing service 12 months ago in anticipation of potential changes. The emphasis of the review has been to meet the individual needs of tenants and enable people to live independently for longer.