Housing Associations choose Homebase Decorating Vouchers
The Community Based Housing Association (CBHA) is a housing association that manages approximately 1,650 properties based across three estates in Waltham Forest.
The houses are 13 years old with a total population of about 6,000 residents mainly living in properties with three bedrooms or more. When it came to refurbishing properties, the CBHA had traditionally issued a cheque to the tenant to enable them to redecorate it themselves.
“We found this could be inefficient as there was no control on where the money was spent,” explains Paul Brown, Housing Director of the CBHA. Add to this the demand for social housing growing day-by-day in today’s economic climate meant that it was becoming increasingly important that the association needed to take a new approach when it came to refurbishing its properties and reducing occupancy waiting lists.
“We realised that a different solution was required and studied a range of schemes offered by home improvement retailers. The problem was the majority were paper-based voucher schemes and did not offer the control over spend we wanted,” Brown adds.
The CBHA was specifically looking for something that offered more control of how decorating money was spent, for example only on products such as paint, wallpaper and tools, plus more security to prevent theft or misuse. After a stringent review process, the CBHA decided to use Homebase, one of the UK’s largest home improvement retailers, and its decorating voucher scheme. With over 300 stores for tenants to buy decorating materials from, it offers unparalleled convenience, more security and is simple to set up and use.
“After receiving a supply of blank electronic decorating vouchers from Homebase, we send them a schedule of how much needs to be allocated against each electronic voucher and they load the value straight away. The administrative effort is just an email,” Brown points out.
Using the voucher, housing association tenants are able to move into void properties straight away and make decorating improvements themselves. They can visit any Homebase store and purchase a wide range of decorating materials. The voucher scheme offered by Homebase also means that the association can be confident that the value issued to the electronic decorating voucher will only be spent on decorating materials.
Once Brown and his team have calculated a decorating allowance for a property, they can issue a value to the electronic voucher on the same day, contrasting sharply with the two weeks it could take to raise a cheque. Homebase’s Decorating Voucher was created especially to assist organisations that own and let properties, such as Housing Associations, Local Councils and other Registered Social Landlords. Unique to any other product on the market it also offers housing associations clear and up-to-date visibility of what has been issued and spent.
“We’ve been using the Homebase Decorating Voucher since last year and have found that, as well as us as a housing association, tenants also find it easier to use. For example, if there has been a leak in a property and the tenant would prefer to repair the damage themselves they can have a Homebase Decorating Voucher,” Brown mentions.
“As a housing manager I have found using the Homebase Decorating Voucher a much more efficient and cost effective process – which saves me time and the CBHA money off the standard price of Homebase decorating products,” Brown concludes.
