Who?

Set up by a resident for residents. You can read an introduction from our Founder Ben Jenkins here. Together (residents and Housing Providers) we can fix the sector, one issue at a time.

Why?

It is clear that many of the issues raised by residents are often lost, overlooked, or simply ignored. This inevitably leads to further unnecessary concern, worry, upheaval and in some cases, risk to life. This also creates a greater divide between you (the resident) and your Housing Provider. This hinders your provider’s ability to provide the agreed level of service to you, other residents, and the wider community.

How?

If you have raised a issue or complaint with your Housing Provider and they have not responded, have yet to ‘fix’ the issue, or keeping missing appointments (this could be either agreed call backs or agreements to attend your property) we want to hear from you.

To help us help you, all you need to do is complete this online form.

Our team will create an online report (an example can be see here)

Online Report

This report does not contain any of your personal data except your postcode. We use your postcode to provide an overview of raised issues. This can support the sector by providing a detailed geographical overview of raised issues. It will also provide us with a snapshot of any 'trends'.

A link to this report will be shared online via your provider’s social media accounts, so that we can be sure your issue has reached your Housing Provider.

Stage One - Taking the information you have provided, we will contact your Housing Provider on your behalf, sharing the issues and data you have provided. We will keep you copied in to emails and will update you throughout the process. Each housing provider has their own stated timeframes, usually published on their website or included in any automated email responses. This is the response window we will give your housing provider before we start to chase.

Note: The only exception to these timeframes would be if there was a risk to life, where we will contact the CEO of your housing provider and your local MP.

In some cases, your provider will ignore us but respond to you directly. If this addresses your issue and you are happy with their response, all we ask is that you update us so we can close the issue. It doesn't matter to us how your issue is resolved as long as it is.

Stage Two - If we do not hear from your Housing Provider within their published timeframe, we will then escalate the issue by contacting the CEO of your Housing Provider, and copying in your local MP, unless this has already been done in Stage One above. This will mean sharing your details with your local MP. We will also again share your online report stating that this issue is still open with no contact from your Housing Provider.

Stage Three - If all requests has been ignored, we will consult with you on next steps, which may include but are not exclusive to:

• Raising as an official complaint

• Sharing with local/national press

• Seeking dispensation for you via an external Dispensation Specialist

• Passing on to the Housing Ombudsman (or other governing bodies)

• Using a Subject Access Request to gather insight into why your issue has been ignored

Your Data

When you ask us to raise an issue on your behalf, we will require the following data points from you:

• Your name and address

• A valid phone number (optional)

• A valid email address

• The name of your Housing Provider

• A summary of the issue

• Consent to contact your provider on your behalf

We will keep this information on file and share with your Housing Provider. Occasionally, we may need to share your information with others, but we will always get your consent first.

We may also ask for photos to show evidence of the issue, before sharing permission will be requested.

Data Retention

At any time you can request to have your data removed from our system. You can contact us via our contact page, by sending an email to support@housingsector.co.uk, or clicking here.

This can take up to 48 hours to remove all of your data.

Unless we hear from you we will keep all data on file for three months from the point the issue was closed. If for whatever reason we are not able to reach you we will remove your data three months from the last point of contact with you.

What we keep - we keep your postcode, name of housing provider, and the summary of the issue you reported. This is kept for data gathering. If you would like more information on this, please contact us via email support@housingsector.co.uk

Further information

If you have any questions please email - support@housingsector.co.uk