MEANINGLESS HOLLOW WORDS FROM A MEANINGLESS HOLLOW ORGANISATION

Carol Matthews

and an

organisation

put to shame

The Cumbria flooding disaster is dwarfing everything in its scale of suffering. Perhaps you could argue that the swamping ordeal of the flood victims can be compared with other suffering in the area, such as Riverside Housing Association tenants a few miles away with little or no heat in their homes.

 

Or you could argue that the tenants` suffering is  only on a minor scale. But  that these people  are really suffering, there is no doubt. It is  the tenants` fifth winter  facing £4,000 energy bills they cannot afford.

This situation at Longtown is shameful for  the Liverpool- based Riverside and its chief executive, Carol Matthews. Shameful  about that organisation`s uncaring  attitude to its tenants and shameful too about the dodgy Riverside boilers in 60 Longtown homes and elsewhere that have caused the  sky-high  energy bills.

Boilers in tenants` homes do not have to be the cause of shame. Boilers in tenants` homes can also be a  cause of great pride. They don`t have to  bring suffering, they can also bring benefits, big benefits.

Guardian writer Dawn Foster

Boilers with big benefits are today`s big talking point among the Longtown tenants as news of these boilers  has emerged in  an article by Dawn Foster in the Guardian newspaper. Boilers with big benefits are big news and  a source of pride for  the housing association that has developed them.

That  association is Gentoo which is based at Sunderland, sixty miles from Longtown.It owns 30,000 properties.

This is what Dawn Foster`s article says:

"Picture the scene: you come down with flu, and take to bed. Your house is both cold and damp, so you develop complications and have to stay in hospital. Once your strength is up, and you’ve been treated, you return home. Your house is still cold, still damp. The conditions aren’t helpful  to your already precarious health, so you return, wearily, to your doctor.

One of the people to benefit from the Boiler on Prescription pilot scheme was 77 year old Herbie Harris, pictured here with his wife June, 75. The former electrician lives in Sunderland. He suffers from a serious respiratory condition.

"This catch-22  situation affects thousands of households in Britain. Much of the housing stock  is poorly insulated, and not especially well maintained. Heating your home becomes expensive, and the entire building is energy inefficient.

"Poorly insulated homes and fuel poverty affect health to a huge degree, and cost the NHS huge sums. It is difficult to make the case for preventative work on homes  if  the NHS alone has to foot the bill.

"To try to test out joined-up care, housing association Gentoo launched a pilot scheme with the NHS in Sunderland, targeting households in fuel-inefficient homes with at least one tenant with a respiratory problem likely to be worsened by cold and damp.

"The households were given a “boiler on prescription” – they were directly prescribed a new boiler and insulation work, including double-glazing, to see if the home improvements translated to health improvements."

Dawn Foster`s article says that results of a boiler on prescription were stark. In the first six months alone, GP appointments had been reduced by 28% and outpatient appointments by 33%. Tenants’ energy bills were reduced by a third on average and the scheme has saved the NHS many thousands of pounds.

.

Gentoo have fewer worries about rent arrears in these homes because their tenants are healthier and the housing stock is healthier too, because it is no longer plagued by damp.

Dawn Foster`s article says that the scheme  has attracted  much attention from doctors throughout the country. One of them is Dr Tim Ballard, vice chairman of the Royal College of GPs who  says this:

“We know that health inequalities affect health and being cold does this more so than many other things.  It is difficult for the healthcare system to positively influence these areas but the Gentoo Boiler on Prescription project needs to be seen as a wake-up call.

“This scheme is good for people, good for the NHS, and to top it all good for the environment that we all depend upon. The big challenge for us all now is to replicate this across the whole of the UK.”

Longtown tenants reading this challenge from the Royal College of GPs find it an impossible dream to believe that  a Gentoo Boiler on Prescription Scheme would ever  reach  Longtown and replace their Riverside  Dodgy Boiler Scheme.

Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation which  for years has been leading the fight  against the uncaring Riverside organisation agrees with this and has this comment:

“Ms Matthews says she is aiming to  `articulate a new vision for housing associations ` while at the same time she works in accordance with Riverside`s  Mission Statement which says that the organisation is `transforming lives and revitalising neighbourhoods`,

“These are  meaningless hollow words from a meaningless hollow organisation.

"Shameful words. Shameful organisation".

CarlisleTenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 522277 or 01228 532803.

OSBORNE`S HOUSING ASSOCIATiON SELL-OFF "COULD BE FATAL"

Carol Matthews,

Annie Graham,

and letters

to Santa

Just like children waiting for Christmas...tenants and leaseholders cannot wait for next week`s Autumn Statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. So much depends on what George Osborne has in store that speculation about it seems endless.

CAROL MATTHEWS... presents for her?

Santa Osborne will have big presents in his Statement for the lucky few, depending on your political viewpoint. But what about the unlucky few, the struggling?

What about housing boss Carol Matthews, far from struggling personally on her lavish salary, but her organisation struggles, too bossy, far from efficient, and accountable to no one? And what about Annie Graham, one of Carol Matthews`s forgotten tenants in Longtown (near Carlisle)? What sort of presents will Santa Osborne have for  her?

Ms Matthews is Chief Executive of the giant Liverpool-based Riverside Housing Association which is now struggling to cope with a government blitz - some call it a government vendetta- along with other housing associations, as Santa Osborne decides what presents he has for them.

Or has he any presents? The forecast is not good for housing associations. There may be no presents. Santa Osborne  may become Scrooge Osborne, or  someone even more sinister.

Annie Grahan is a widow  in her seventies, struggling, as she has been for four long winters. Her struggle is  with her Riverside heating boiler which like many others is dodgy, and the sky-high energy bills of £4,000 which it produces for her small flat in Moor Road.

ANNIE GRAHAM...she dreads £4,000 energy bills

Annie dreads these bills and worries incessantly because she cannot afford them. Sadly, the forecast for Annie, like  the forecast for Ms. Matthews, is not good.

So what happens now  for the two strugglers in the week that is  left  until the Chancellor`s Autumn Statement on November 25?

Struggling Ms Matthews is cautiously hopeful. She has written what might be called a letter to Santa Osborne telling him what presents she would like in her stocking on Christmas Day. Her letter was an article in the social housing journal, Inside Housing, much of which was reprinted recently in an earlier post on this blog .

The article  attempted to fend off the  government attacks with  some new ideas to change housing associations.

No letter to Santa from the struggling Annie Graham. But ”kind neighbours” this week held  what might be called a pre-Christmas get - together with friendly council bosses to see what can be done about  her boiler and all the sixty other dodgy Riverside boilers in Longtown houses and elsewhere, and the vicious £4,000 bills that go with them.

The “kind neighbours” are two officials of Longtown Action for Heat, a community group which was formed to fight for justice for Annie and all the other tenants condemned to live with Riverside`s dodgy boilers.

The two, Jimmy Robb and Tim Hall spent more than an hour pressing Annie`s case and that of the others at a meeting with Councillor Colin Glover, Leader of Carlisle City Council and two of his senior colleagues.

The councillors promised to do what they could to help.

And what about that that speculation  about George Osborne`s Autumn Statement? The speculation follows a report in the Financial Times that Mr. Osborne  has his eye on £44 billion in government grants made to housing associations over the years.

The Chancellor wants to get hold of this money and privatise it in a massive Thatcher-style sell-off to the public, says the Financial Times

SINEAD BUTTERS..."our existence under threat"

Housing association bosses have warned that if Mr Osborne`s  sell-off  took place, it would damage their ability to build homes and also undermine their historic social purpose.

One of them, Sinead Butters, chief executive of  the Newcastle-under-Lyme based Aspire associaton said:“Should  the sell-off actually happen,  it will be the latest in a series of  government policy changes that rock the housing association sector to its very core, threatening our existence.”

CarlisleTenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 522277 or 01228 532803.

NICOLA STURGEON BOOSTS HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS

Carol Matthews

and a call

for tenants`

`freedom...`

Another storm is brewing for the beleaguered Carol Matthews struggling with a government attack on housing associations. 

Nicola Sturgeon...more freedom

Now comes an attack from Scotland.

Nicola Sturgeon`s Scottish  government wants more freedom for the tenants and leaseholders of housing associations. That freedom is very much in short supply here in England.

The freedom news comes this week in an announcement that Scottish housing associations are set to become subject to Freedom of Information(FOI) laws.The associations include  the  giant Liverpool-based Riverside Housing Association whose chief executive is Ms Matthews.

Riverside owns  the Irvine Housing Associaton in Strathclyde covering much of south west Scotland, and extending to the English border at Gretna. Irvine Housing Association is a subsidiary of Riverside  and owns 2,100  of Riverside`s total of more than 50,000 properties.

The freedom news is a worry for Ms. Matthews, particularly as the Irvine Association area is  next door to her troubled Carlisle area and its 6,000 properties- the Irvine area`s Gretna boundary is just a mile or two from Longtown  with its well-publicised Riverside heating fiasco of ice box properties. This fiasco is  dragging unresolved  into a  fourth winter.

Peter Howden....worried

The freedom news is also a worry in Scotland because of  the expense involved.Peter Howden, chair of the Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations put it this way:“ 

We’re worried about associations being dragged into time-consuming and expensive processes to deal with FOI requests,”

“Compliance with the bureaucratic FOI procedures can divert staff away from providing services to tenants. It also means more of tenants’ money going to lawyers as associations take advice on matters such as what is and isn’t covered by FOI.”

The beleaguered Ms Matthews has enough on her plate already to tackle this new layer of expensive  bureaucracy, particulary faced with the increasing Whitehall attacks and her forecast of a massive £100 million  loss of income in the next four years.

So, what now?

Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation has this to say to the beleagred  Ms Matthews:

·     Riverside has had four years to get the Longtown problems

   sorted and the tenants there are still suffering.

·        

   After `13 years, leaseholders in Carlisle are still struggling  to cope with with Riverside`s incomprehensive expenses` tangle.

·       

   Scottish Freedom of Information is a big new Riverside worry.

·     

    How many years will Riverside take to get Scottish Freedom of Information sorted?

CarlisleTenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 522277 or 01228 532803.