1  About Ability Housing Association

a. What is Ability Housing Assoctiation?

• Our Housing Services
• Our Support Services

b. Our values:

• Quality
• Respect
• Value
• Integrity

c. Our service standards

d. How to make a complaint

e. How to contact Ability

2  Living in your Ability home

3  Your repairs service

4  Money matters

5  Your support services

6  Useful stuff

a. What is Ability Housing Association?

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Ability Housing Association is a Registered Social Landlord (RSL. that specialises in providing people with disabilities with specialist housing and support services tailored to their individual needs to enable them to live more independent lives.

Founded in 1976, Ability now manages more than 350 units of housing in southern England and provides support services for over 500 people, including people with physical disabilities, learning disabilities, sensory impairment and, in some locations, to people recovering from mental illness.

Our services fall into two main types: Housing Services and Support Services.

Our Housing Services include:

• Design and development of specialist housing for rent or shared ownership
• Housing management and maintenance
• Design and project management of specialist adaptations for disability
• Development and administration of Disability Housing Registers.

Our Support Services include:

• Housing with Support, including:
  • permanent housing with individually tailored support provided on-site in self-contained flats, bungalows and houses. In some services, support can be provided for up to 24 hours a day.
  • medium stay housing with intensive support provided to assist individuals to develop independent living skills and to prepare for moving-on to permanent housing. This type of housing can be in fully self-contained flats, bungalows or studio flats with some communal facilities or shared housing.
• Floating Support – a tailored and flexible support service for people living in their own homes, whether tenants of Ability or not. The level of support can be varied as an individual’s needs change.

All our services are designed to enable our service users to enjoy five key components of independent living – privacy, dignity, choice, respect and participation.

b. Our Values

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Promoting Independent Living

Ability Housing Association is committed to providing affordable housing and support services that promote independent living opportunities for people with disabilities.

Our pursuit of this aim is underpinned by the following values:

• Quality - we desire always to provide a high quality service and to strive to improve upon our standards and performance wherever possible.
• Respect - we are constantly aware that our tenants and service users are individuals, each with their own unique needs and aspirations, and we respect them as such at all times.
• Value - we try to ensure that our housing and services are affordable, efficient and responsive to the needs of our tenants and service users.
• Integrity - we are committed to a culture of openness, honesty and accountability throughout the Association.

We aim always to be:

• Proactive - seeking innovative and creative solutions
• Prudent - ensuring our long-term viability through managed, sustainable growth
• Professional - working with others to achieve outcomes that benefit our tenants and service users.

As a responsible RSL committed to the goal of continuous improvement, we have also ensured that all our services are compliant with and adhere to the performance standards set out by the Government and the Housing Corporation in the following recent initiatives:

• Supporting People - the new national framework for planning, paying for and setting standards for housing related support services.
• Rent Restructuring - a new national framework for setting rents and making sure they are affordable for tenants.
• The Housing Corporation: Regulation and Inspection - Ability is regulated and inspected to monitor our standards and performance.

c. Our service standards

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Promoting Independent Living

The standards below apply to all aspects of how Ability delivers its services to you. This also includes the service provided by contractors employed by Ability.

• We will treat people fairly, with courtesy and respect
• We will provide clear and accessible information on the services we provide
• We will make our services accessible to all sections of the community
• We will communicate swiftly and effectively in an appropriate fashion
• We will regularly consult with our service users to ensure that we are providing the services that meet your needs
• We will treat all personal information in a confidential manner
• We will make and keep mutually convenient appointments with our service users
• We will deal with all complaints promptly and in a positive manner
• We will ensure that our staff are sufficiently resourced and trained to provide a high quality service
• We will ensure that all of our staff can identify themselves as employees of Ability.

d. How to make a complaint

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At Ability we are committed to providing high quality services to our tenants and service users.We believe we succeed most of the time but there may be times when things go wrong and you feel dissatisfied.

When this happens we want to hear about it and have the opportunity to put things right and learn from any mistakes we may have made to ensure that they do not happen again.We also want to hear from you if you have positive suggestions for improving services.

Ability’s commitment to you

We will try to sort your problem out as quickly as possible.We will be fair and will listen carefully to what you have to say. You will not be treated less favourably because you have made a complaint.

Informal resolution

Most problems can be sorted out informally at a local level and we ask you to make your concern known by talking first to the member of staff that you usually deal with. This will usually be a Housing Officer or Housing SupportWorker.

In most cases we expect them to put right the problem. If they don’t then you can make a formal complaint.

How do I make a formal complaint?

If you do not feel able to do this on your own, please speak to somebody you trust and ask them to help you. This might be a member of our staff, a friend, a member of your family, an independent advocate or an independent advice service such as a Citizens Advice Bureau.

The different stages of the complaints procedure are summarised below. At any stage you can contact your local or area office and ask for a copy of the full complaints procedure.

First stage

Talk to your Area Manager about the problem; let her know what you would like to be done about it. The Area Manager will write down details of your complaint and report the problem to her Regional Manager. You will be told what action is going to be taken.

If you are still unhappy, you should go to the second stage.

Second stage

Put your complaint in writing to the Chief Executive of Ability. Our staff can help you to do this if you want, or you can ask someone else who you trust.

Your complaint will be looked into and you will have the chance to speak to someone about your concern. You will get a letter explaining what action is being taken.

If you are still dissatisfied you can appeal using the third stage.

Third stage

If you have been through the first and second stages and you are still dissatisfied, you can appeal. Your appeal must also be put in writing. It will be considered by the board of Ability when they next meet.

e. How to contact Ability

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The card at the front of your handbook will tell you the names, addresses, telephone numbers and other relevant information for your local office and staff.

Most of the time, your local staff will be able to help you. If you have lost your card or think it might need updating, or if your local office has been unable to help you, please contact our head office at the address below:

Telephone: 01784 490 910
Fax: 01784 490 510
Email: info@ability-housing.co.uk
Website: www.ability-housing.co.uk

The information in this handbook can be made available to you in other forms, such as, audio tape, large print and other languages. Please let us know what format you need.