It's my children's future and the future generations to come that I fear for. I don't think my children will be able to access good quality homes or be in a position to get on the property ladder. I’m looking to make changes to my home life to prepare myself for my children's future to be spent with me for some time.
At 17, I started my journey of becoming a social housing tenant and it allowed me to put down roots. Having that security has allowed me to experience positive life goals and made me the person I am today. The stability of housing and having my family close by opened up employment opportunities and I even attended university.
Being housed in social housing allowed me to build roots in my community. I was able to access good education and healthcare links for my children.
The generation after me wasn’t so lucky. Social housing in Wales started to fall and my sister has suffered with the lack of social housing. She has been waiting 9 years for social housing for her and her son. After being housed in 3 hostels and moving into private rented accommodation, her and her 8 year old have had to move 11 times. He has never felt part of a community - he settles in a school and then has to move. This has a knock on effect on his social skills and learning capacity. Once they start to build connections within their community, it's taken away again.
Don't my sister and nephew deserve the same experience I had a generation ago? One that enabled me to build my future in social housing in Wales?
That’s why I attended the Homes for Britain rally. Help us to end the housing crisis within a generation.
Adelle, Cadwyn HA tenant and board member
Showing posts with label cadwyn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cadwyn. Show all posts
Tuesday, 21 April 2015
Wednesday, 12 November 2014
#HousingDay - Tanya's story
In 2001, Tanya MacGregor was a domestic abuse victim and homeless mother-of three. However, today, she is living proof of how the social housing sector can transform lives for the better.
Tanya has gone full circle from being homeless and in the depths of domestic abuse despair to gaining a degree and winning numerous awards. She is now giving back and providing life-changing help to others via the Your Benefits Are Changing (YBAC) campaign run by Community Housing Cymru (CHC).
She said: “It’s amazing the opportunities that social housing has provided for me and my family. I went from being homeless with a young family to finding my way to getting a home, which in turn allowed me to access services, health, a degree, a job. None of this would have been possible without social housing.
“The effect on my family has been transformational. I now work full time helping others to get their houses in order as a money adviser with YBAC. My eldest son completed a degree, my daughter went to college and now works full time, and my youngest is now doing his GCSEs. I couldn’t have even imagined all this a decade ago.
“Without a home, you can’t get access to anything - you don’t exist. Social housing has given me and my family the chance to lay down roots and better ourselves.
“Social housing is a comfort blanket – it allows people access to affordable rents and the chance to re-train and go out to work. We would not have achieved what we have as a family without social housing; we would have been pushed from pillar to post. Social housing has been our safety net and I hope as many people can benefit from it in the same ways that my family and I have.”
More than a decade ago, the married mother became homeless after deciding she could no longer put up with the beatings she was enduring from her then husband.
Overnight, she went from being a homeowner to homeless, with nothing more than a full carrier bag to her name. With her three young children - aged nine, six and five-months old - she took refuge in a women’s hostel.
Tanya spent a year classed as homeless in the hostel run by Cardiff Women’s Aid and owned by United Welsh. During this time she was able to re-build her confidence and take stock of her situation, all the while making friends with fellow victims of domestic abuse staying at the hostel.
Tanya's time in the hostel also started her journey into adult learning with her undertaking a basic skills and IT course along with a Maths course, initially so that she ‘could help her young son with his homework’.
Shortly afterwards, she joined the Board of Management as a committee member/service user and got involved in a Tenant Empowerment Grant scheme. In doing this, Tanya began her ‘giving back’ - using her own experiences to help others suffering as a result of pre or post domestic abuse issues. The tenant service user group offered friendship, craft and DIY classes. It also gave women mental support and well as technical and practical skills, advice, help and, just like Tanya - hope for the future.
Tanya remained a board member for four years, her own experience being a remedy to help others and herself on the road to recovery.
Tanya and the group’s efforts were praised and the model won an award for Good Practice by the Welsh Assembly.
Around this time, Tanya’s confidence and circumstances had improved greatly. She and her young family were rehoused by Cardiff Council and she enrolled on a Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) and Policy Degree at UWIC. During her first day she spotted two other familiar faces in the class. Recalling that time, she said: “Two of my classmates were ladies from the refuge and now they both work in the housing sector, like me.”
On the back of her adult learning success, Tanya won the All Wales Housing Manager Local Council Academic Achievement Award, the 2008 CIH Welsh Student of the Year and the 2008 CIH National Student of the Year Award, which lead to her taking part in the prestigious Tri-Countries Conference in Canada.
In 2008-2009, Tanya worked at Rhondda Housing Association as Tenancy Support Officer. Her housing degree dissertation was about Older People in Extra Care which she did for another housing association - Linc Cymru. The subject theme became particularly poignant in 2009 when Tanya decided to take a break from work to care for her parents who were both suffering with Alzheimer’s disease.
Tanya aged 48, said: “It was a difficult time, but as my dissertation was about the same issues I felt I was equipped to fight for the rights of my parents and sort everything out. I was juggling the care of my parents and the care of my young family.”
In 2010 Tanya decided she wanted to get back into work on a part time basis and gained a six month position with Cadwyn Housing through the job centre scheme, Go Wales, doing admin for the HA Tenant Participation and Financial Inclusion arm.
Tanya said: “I was feeling down about my circumstances with my parents’ illness and going back to work gave me renewed confidence. This was down to the organisation's managers and staff and support for my situation. They had fundraising events for Alzheimer’s society.”
From 2011 until today, Tanya has been employed as one of the YBAC Money Advisors at CHC, set up to help distribute information about Welfare Reform.
Courtesy of CHC, she gained a MA qualification from Staffordshire University.
Tanya completed an evaluation for Rhondda Housing Association on the Financial Inclusion project. Also, as part of YBAC, Tanya has provided advice sessions for a number of housing associations and attended CHC’s YBAC campaigning events on behalf of tenants.
Tanya said: “Housing Associations are not in the business of evicting people so the work I do is helping people to get their house/home finances in order. I know only too well how hard it can be. I’ve been there and the advice I was given was invaluable, so I hope I can repay the favour by helping others.”
Tanya MacGregor
Money Adviser, CHC
Tanya has gone full circle from being homeless and in the depths of domestic abuse despair to gaining a degree and winning numerous awards. She is now giving back and providing life-changing help to others via the Your Benefits Are Changing (YBAC) campaign run by Community Housing Cymru (CHC).
She said: “It’s amazing the opportunities that social housing has provided for me and my family. I went from being homeless with a young family to finding my way to getting a home, which in turn allowed me to access services, health, a degree, a job. None of this would have been possible without social housing.
“The effect on my family has been transformational. I now work full time helping others to get their houses in order as a money adviser with YBAC. My eldest son completed a degree, my daughter went to college and now works full time, and my youngest is now doing his GCSEs. I couldn’t have even imagined all this a decade ago.
“Without a home, you can’t get access to anything - you don’t exist. Social housing has given me and my family the chance to lay down roots and better ourselves.
“Social housing is a comfort blanket – it allows people access to affordable rents and the chance to re-train and go out to work. We would not have achieved what we have as a family without social housing; we would have been pushed from pillar to post. Social housing has been our safety net and I hope as many people can benefit from it in the same ways that my family and I have.”
More than a decade ago, the married mother became homeless after deciding she could no longer put up with the beatings she was enduring from her then husband.
Overnight, she went from being a homeowner to homeless, with nothing more than a full carrier bag to her name. With her three young children - aged nine, six and five-months old - she took refuge in a women’s hostel.
Tanya spent a year classed as homeless in the hostel run by Cardiff Women’s Aid and owned by United Welsh. During this time she was able to re-build her confidence and take stock of her situation, all the while making friends with fellow victims of domestic abuse staying at the hostel.
Tanya's time in the hostel also started her journey into adult learning with her undertaking a basic skills and IT course along with a Maths course, initially so that she ‘could help her young son with his homework’.
Shortly afterwards, she joined the Board of Management as a committee member/service user and got involved in a Tenant Empowerment Grant scheme. In doing this, Tanya began her ‘giving back’ - using her own experiences to help others suffering as a result of pre or post domestic abuse issues. The tenant service user group offered friendship, craft and DIY classes. It also gave women mental support and well as technical and practical skills, advice, help and, just like Tanya - hope for the future.
Tanya remained a board member for four years, her own experience being a remedy to help others and herself on the road to recovery.
Tanya and the group’s efforts were praised and the model won an award for Good Practice by the Welsh Assembly.
Around this time, Tanya’s confidence and circumstances had improved greatly. She and her young family were rehoused by Cardiff Council and she enrolled on a Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) and Policy Degree at UWIC. During her first day she spotted two other familiar faces in the class. Recalling that time, she said: “Two of my classmates were ladies from the refuge and now they both work in the housing sector, like me.”
On the back of her adult learning success, Tanya won the All Wales Housing Manager Local Council Academic Achievement Award, the 2008 CIH Welsh Student of the Year and the 2008 CIH National Student of the Year Award, which lead to her taking part in the prestigious Tri-Countries Conference in Canada.
In 2008-2009, Tanya worked at Rhondda Housing Association as Tenancy Support Officer. Her housing degree dissertation was about Older People in Extra Care which she did for another housing association - Linc Cymru. The subject theme became particularly poignant in 2009 when Tanya decided to take a break from work to care for her parents who were both suffering with Alzheimer’s disease.
Tanya aged 48, said: “It was a difficult time, but as my dissertation was about the same issues I felt I was equipped to fight for the rights of my parents and sort everything out. I was juggling the care of my parents and the care of my young family.”
In 2010 Tanya decided she wanted to get back into work on a part time basis and gained a six month position with Cadwyn Housing through the job centre scheme, Go Wales, doing admin for the HA Tenant Participation and Financial Inclusion arm.
Tanya said: “I was feeling down about my circumstances with my parents’ illness and going back to work gave me renewed confidence. This was down to the organisation's managers and staff and support for my situation. They had fundraising events for Alzheimer’s society.”
From 2011 until today, Tanya has been employed as one of the YBAC Money Advisors at CHC, set up to help distribute information about Welfare Reform.
Courtesy of CHC, she gained a MA qualification from Staffordshire University.
Tanya completed an evaluation for Rhondda Housing Association on the Financial Inclusion project. Also, as part of YBAC, Tanya has provided advice sessions for a number of housing associations and attended CHC’s YBAC campaigning events on behalf of tenants.
Tanya said: “Housing Associations are not in the business of evicting people so the work I do is helping people to get their house/home finances in order. I know only too well how hard it can be. I’ve been there and the advice I was given was invaluable, so I hope I can repay the favour by helping others.”
Tanya MacGregor
Money Adviser, CHC
Monday, 28 April 2014
Instagram that breeze block!
I’ve been having fun with Cadwyn’s newest development, a regeneration project for the local shopping parade in Pentrebane, a close knit residential area in the west of Cardiff. As well as setting up the targeted recruitment and training for the site, I’ve been experimenting with using social media and a blog to bring the development to life for local people.
I had the idea for this after my kids were fortunate enough to have a brand new school built for them last year. They were pretty excited about this, but apart from one site visit and the obligatory Ivor Goodsite poster homework assignment, they ended up not really feeling involved in the project at all. This didn’t stop them bombarding me with questions every time we walked past - questions about what was happening with that machine, and why, and how would they get the roof on, and how many bricks did I think would be needed all together, and did the person driving the digger need a special licence, and on, and on, and on….Some of these questions I could (sort of) answer, but for most of them I did what any self respecting parent does these days and relied on Google, and the site project’s occasional twitter feed.
This got me thinking that while there are obvious limitations to opening up actual building sites – health and safety, time, logistics, to name just a few – the internet and social media offers a big opportunity to do the next best thing by acting as a window onto the development. What I didn’t realise then was that I’d have the chance to put my money where my mouth is a year or so later…so, based on my modus operandi of assuming that anything is allowed unless someone specifically tells me it’s not, I’ve been busy getting Beechley Drive a social media identity!
This is what I’ve done so far…
Beechley Drive Blog - the development brief from Cardiff Council included a requirement to set up a website to keep the local community informed of site developments. I really wanted this to be more than a static website with a one way flow of information that nobody would ever return to a second time, so I’ve worked with Cadwyn’s Web Officer to set up a simple WordPress site, which has the required corporate boxes ticked (logos of funding partners, project timeline) but which also offers a more friendly voice to the development, with blog posts written in a (hopefully) chatty and informative tone. I’ve left comments enabled throughout the site in the hope that folk will interact with the site and suggest/contribute further content, and I’m also talking to the local schools about the children taking over parts of the blog, perhaps posting interviews with longtime residents, or other class projects related to the site.
Beechley Drive Facebook Page - the Pentrebane community already makes good use of Facebook with various groups set up for local residents, school parents, Communities First projects and so forth, so I am hoping that a FB page will offer a quick and easy window onto the development, but also of course be a forum for local residents to ask questions, raise concerns, and make suggestions. It’s also an easy way of sharing blog posts and project photos, and driving engagement to the website itself.
Beechley Drive Twitter Feed - I’m envisaging that most of the interaction with local residents will be via Facebook, because of the strong groups that already exist there. However, using Twitter gives us an opportunity to talk with people who don’t use Facebook – and also I think a more effective way of sharing what we’re doing with stakeholders and organisations who are not necessarily local.
Beechley Drive Instagram Feed - the Instagram feed itself does not have much traction; however, I’m using it primarily in conjunction with Facebook and Twitter to share photos and comments as the site progresses. The Instagram feed is also linked to the website, which means that even if there is a quiet week as far as the blog goes, there’ll be new content on the site to draw people back.
It’s early days for all of the above, and now the big challenge becomes keeping the website and social media channels feeling fresh and worth following; and of course to promote and encourage interaction so that this does not just become a one way stream of information blasted meaninglessly into the ether. This will be very much a learning process, and I’m sure there’ll be stuff that goes wrong. I would welcome advice and pointers from anyone who’s done anything similar!
I’ll be blogging progress and lessons learnt (and more than likely the occasional mistake) along the way, so please feel free to join me on the journey!
Michelle Davis
Targeted Recruitment and Training, Cadwyn HA
I had the idea for this after my kids were fortunate enough to have a brand new school built for them last year. They were pretty excited about this, but apart from one site visit and the obligatory Ivor Goodsite poster homework assignment, they ended up not really feeling involved in the project at all. This didn’t stop them bombarding me with questions every time we walked past - questions about what was happening with that machine, and why, and how would they get the roof on, and how many bricks did I think would be needed all together, and did the person driving the digger need a special licence, and on, and on, and on….Some of these questions I could (sort of) answer, but for most of them I did what any self respecting parent does these days and relied on Google, and the site project’s occasional twitter feed.
This got me thinking that while there are obvious limitations to opening up actual building sites – health and safety, time, logistics, to name just a few – the internet and social media offers a big opportunity to do the next best thing by acting as a window onto the development. What I didn’t realise then was that I’d have the chance to put my money where my mouth is a year or so later…so, based on my modus operandi of assuming that anything is allowed unless someone specifically tells me it’s not, I’ve been busy getting Beechley Drive a social media identity!
This is what I’ve done so far…
Beechley Drive Blog - the development brief from Cardiff Council included a requirement to set up a website to keep the local community informed of site developments. I really wanted this to be more than a static website with a one way flow of information that nobody would ever return to a second time, so I’ve worked with Cadwyn’s Web Officer to set up a simple WordPress site, which has the required corporate boxes ticked (logos of funding partners, project timeline) but which also offers a more friendly voice to the development, with blog posts written in a (hopefully) chatty and informative tone. I’ve left comments enabled throughout the site in the hope that folk will interact with the site and suggest/contribute further content, and I’m also talking to the local schools about the children taking over parts of the blog, perhaps posting interviews with longtime residents, or other class projects related to the site.
Beechley Drive Facebook Page - the Pentrebane community already makes good use of Facebook with various groups set up for local residents, school parents, Communities First projects and so forth, so I am hoping that a FB page will offer a quick and easy window onto the development, but also of course be a forum for local residents to ask questions, raise concerns, and make suggestions. It’s also an easy way of sharing blog posts and project photos, and driving engagement to the website itself.
Beechley Drive Twitter Feed - I’m envisaging that most of the interaction with local residents will be via Facebook, because of the strong groups that already exist there. However, using Twitter gives us an opportunity to talk with people who don’t use Facebook – and also I think a more effective way of sharing what we’re doing with stakeholders and organisations who are not necessarily local.
Beechley Drive Instagram Feed - the Instagram feed itself does not have much traction; however, I’m using it primarily in conjunction with Facebook and Twitter to share photos and comments as the site progresses. The Instagram feed is also linked to the website, which means that even if there is a quiet week as far as the blog goes, there’ll be new content on the site to draw people back.
It’s early days for all of the above, and now the big challenge becomes keeping the website and social media channels feeling fresh and worth following; and of course to promote and encourage interaction so that this does not just become a one way stream of information blasted meaninglessly into the ether. This will be very much a learning process, and I’m sure there’ll be stuff that goes wrong. I would welcome advice and pointers from anyone who’s done anything similar!
I’ll be blogging progress and lessons learnt (and more than likely the occasional mistake) along the way, so please feel free to join me on the journey!
Michelle Davis
Targeted Recruitment and Training, Cadwyn HA
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