Tenants give Housing Gateway an overwhelming thumbs up in a satisfaction survey asking them what they thought of the services they received.
Enfield Council set up the independent company in 2014 to buy family-sized homes in the borough and surrounding area to provide an alternative to costly nightly accommodation, and it is proving a big hit with its tenants.
The survey of 153 people found:
- 90% of respondents agreed that Housing Gateway staff were polite and 85% were satisfied with the service they received;
- More than eight in 10 people (85%) of respondents found that the information provided by Housing Gateway was ‘easy’ to understand;
- 78% of respondents said the standard of Housing Gateway properties was good;
- 88% of respondents agreed that heating was efficient;
- 86% of respondents agreed that the facilities provided were reasonably modern.
Compared to housing organisations, Housing Gateway’s tenant satisfaction score, of 85%, is higher than average.
Some families who would previously be placed in temporary accommodation are now instead being housed in a Housing Gateway property and given an assured shorthold tenancy and support to find alternative accommodation. Housing Gateway was set up in March 2014 to reduce an anticipated £3.3m budget pressure associated with housing families in temporary accommodation in 2014/15 — a figure which was predicted to rise to £7.8m if no action was taken.
Enfield Council’s cabinet member for finance & efficiency and chair of the board for Housing Gateway, cllr Dino Lemonides (pictured above), said: “Housing Gateway has helped the council reduce temporary accommodation budget pressures, secure good quality local properties for local families and drive up the standards of accommodation in Enfield by ensuring the properties it lets are well managed and of a good standard.
“The reality is that in recent years the demand for housing in Enfield has sky rocketed and simultaneously we have found other London boroughs placing families in temporary accommodation in Enfield because it is cheaper than in their own borough. That meant we had to do something radical and we did — we created Housing Gateway.
“To hear that this relatively new company has attracted such a high level of satisfaction amongst our residents is fantastic and shows that setting up this company, which not only delivers excellent services to tenants but saves us money, was the right thing to do.”
