Recognition for Hostel Teams’ Excellent Service

Published by Victoria for Cross Keys Homes in Housing and also in Communities

Cross Keys Homes, Peterborough’s largest social landlord, is delighted to announce it has been awarded an A grade in their recent Supporting People assessment for its hostel services. This is a great accolade and a huge testament to the superb work the hostel team and their managers do on behalf of some of the most vulnerable people in the City.

Cross Keys Homes run four short term emergency hostels, offering rooms for families and individuals – the only service in Peterborough to do this. The service has a total of 76 rooms and at any one time can have between 150 to 250 residents, of all ages and cultural backgrounds.

The assessments ensured the service’s policies and procedures adhered to the Supporting People requirements, and staff and residents were interviewed. The report stated that staff were knowledgeable and treated residents fairly and in a non-judgemental way. Staff were also praised on their knowledge of external support services and the advice they are able to offer residents.

Residents praised the staff for getting a good balance between being supportive and intrusive. Residents felt safe and secure in the hostels and felt involved, despite their short stays. The service was also commended for having suitable procedures for assessing resident’s needs and risks, which took into account resident’s views.

To achieve the A grade is a rare for a hostel service, as the transitory nature of the residents makes consultation on service provision with them so difficult. The many and varied needs of hostel residents makes providing a top quality, customer focussed service even more of a challenge, as residents are often at a very difficult place in their life.

Elaine Izzo, Welfare and Resettlement Officer said: ‘The whole temporary accommodation team is thrilled to have been awarded an A in the recent Supporting People assessments. We are all dedicated to offering the best service to our residents and in keeping with the excellent reputation in customer services that Cross Keys Homes has built up we have worked hard to maintain this standard.  This award is confirmation that our residents appreciate the assistance they receive during their stay with us while going through tough times and proves that having a great team of staff that pull together pays dividends.

Claire Higgins, Director of Operations at Cross Keys Homes, is delighted with the achievements of the hostels team: ‘our team work tirelessly to provide an excellent service to people at the most difficult times in their lives. We are thrilled to have this hard work recognised and know that our service is second to none in the city and possibly even nationally.’

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Notes for Editors:

Cross Keys Homes is Peterborough’s largest landlord, providing over 10,000 affordable high quality homes. It also leases more than 70 shop units, rents garages, manages temporary accommodation, delivers business solutions to others and is the only HCA partner building affordable homes in Peterborough – 700 more new homes by 2015. Cross Keys Homes also provides an emergency Lifeline alarm service for elderly and vulnerable people and provides tenancy help, money advice, employment skills and training programmes.

 The Supporting People assessment is conducted by Peterborough City Council, who administer the fund for the City. Supporting People award CKH a grant which covers 60% of the hostel staffing cost.

Cross Keys Homes operate four hostels in the City, three of which accommodate single people and families and on which is for male residents only. It finds people are needing temporary accommodation for a variety of reasons including job loss, debt, evictions from private landlords who want to sell on their house, family breakdown and domestic violence, leaving prison or the armed services and drug, alcohol or mental health problems. The organisation is seeing a huge rise in the demand for temporary accommodation – just twelve months ago it was considering closing its smallest hostel due to under occupancy. Now there is a waiting list for beds to become available. All residents have been referred by Peterborough City Council.

Media Contact:
Victoria Guy, Corporate Affairs Manager
T: 01733 385014
M: 07702 345987
E: victoria.guy@crosskeyshomes.co.uk