“The first set of impact measures we’ve received from social housing organisations demonstrates the phenomenal amount of work they made in supporting residents and communities in the first six weeks of the Covid-19 crisis,” said Andrew van Doorn, Chief Executive, HACT. “If we were to aggregate these figures across the sector, it would indicate that the social housing sector made over a million welfare calls to residents during this time. This is a significant and notable achievement.”

In total, 41 social housing organisations with a combined stock of 697,801 homes – or just under 25% of the total housing association stock in the UK – sent us their data around the nine measures we launched in May 2020. These measures were developed by the Centre for Excellence in Community Investment, working in partnership with a coalition of social housing organisations across the UK.

“These measures demonstrate the invaluable work of community investment teams to internal colleagues and Board members,” added Andrew van Doorn. “They serve to evidence the essential role that social housing organisations play in place, delivering the social purpose of social housing.”

“Whilst reporting on the impact we’ve had,” he added, “HACT, the Centre for Excellence in Community Investment and the sector are now turning our collective attention towards the longer term impacts of Covid-19. We need to address how we use our resources and presence in communities to be a key part of the recovery and reset that is now needed. As we move forward, the social purpose of social housing organisations and the social value we create will be even more important.”

We are currently receiving data returns from organiastions for May, which will help us to evidence the continued impact of social housing organisations. The deadline for submitting these returns to us is 19 June.

The impact measures were originally endorsed by:

• NHF
• Placeshapers
• SFHA
• Tpas
• NIFHA
• Community Housing Cymru
• Communities that work
• Northern Housing Consortium
• Clarion
• L&Q
• Sovereign
• Peabody
• Orbit
• MTVH
• Newydd HA
• Longhurst
• Southern
• Irwell Valley Homes

Editor’s notes

The nine measures we are asking social housing organisations to collect and share are:

• Number of residents identified as vulnerable in the past month
• Number of welfare calls to residents in the past month
• Percentage of residents requesting any form of support
• Number of people supported with advice and guidance in the past month
• Amount distributed through direct financial support in the past month
• Number of food interventions made in the past month
• Percentage of households receiving food interventions more than once
• Number of staff deployed to community response roles in the past month
• Number of residents identified as being at risk of falling into arrears as a result of self-isolation or illness

For further information about the measures, please visit www.ceci.org.uk/measures