Housing NSW Tenant Connect is a free service where you receive a phone call each day to confirm you are safe and well.The service will be provided in partnership between Red Cross and Housing NSW (including the Office of Community Housing) across NSW. Tenants aged 80 or over and Aboriginal tenants aged 55 or over who live in public, community and Aboriginal housing will be eligible to apply for this service.More info
Community Housing Tenant Network
The network was started in 2005 to increase the opportunities for community housing tenants to learn about tenant participation and to get involved themselves. It was initially funded through a Community Development and Resourcing Grant from the Office of Community Housing. The project was initiated by four Housing Associations (Garrigal, Western Suburbs, St. George and Hume), who quickly extended an invitation to join the network to tenants of other metro area associations. We now have representatives from a number of regional areas and we are working to get involvement from community housing tenants from all NSW housing associations.
The principle behind the network was that there were creative, inspirational examples of tenant involvement amongst many of the housing associations in NSW. Yet there were few opportunities for housing association tenants to meet up and learn from each other. Many Housing Association tenants were isolated and were not fully accessing the opportunities for participation already available. Since 2005 the Network has been promoting tenant participation to tenants and associations across NSW.
To get tenants’ organisations to come together as a collaborative group and form a network for community housing tenants’ groups
To work towards the involvement of all community housing tenants
To become a tenant led network
To break down the isolation felt by individual tenants’ organisations
To share information about successful projects and learn from other tenants’ experience
To promote effective tenant participation in the community housing sector
To link up with the wider tenants movement
To encourage and support tenant leaders
To promote educational and training opportunities to support tenant participation in the sector
To represent the interests of all Community Housing tenants
To comment and have input on Community Housing Division and wider government policy matters
Tenants from different Metro associations worked hard as a core group of able and committed tenants have been attending and guiding the Federation’s work as a steering group. The Tenant Network has now elect its first Representative Committee which will begin to take on additional responsibilities as they start to represent tenants’ views from across the region.
In the next financial year we will explore the possibilities for expanding the Network to cover the whole of NSW.
