In collaboration with Anchor, this HAPPI Hour shares:
– actions taken by a prominent national specialist operator dedicated to housing and care for older people;
– insights into the growing demand for multi-generational housing, as observed by Gateway Housing Association in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets;
– and the latest developments at Tonic Housing’s Bank House, the UK’s first LGBT+ affirming retirement community.
The views shared in this webinar do not necessarily reflect the views of the Housing LIN.
Welcome to this session um anchored in diversity inclusion and we’re delighted to partner with anchor trust with Gateway housing tonic um and also to have low speech from from the housing L uh the agenda is here uh and you’ll see that we’ll shortly be inviting Tegan from ANA who’s their diversity and
Inclusion manager to give a presentation around the Strategic approach that they’re taking there and the work that they’ve been involved in Becky thanks ofo for joining us from Gateway housing I know that you’re off to pastures news soon uh you’re the director of development sales and Property Services
Uh and we also look forward to leaing with you uh in in your future employee as well at Saxon wheel and Sharina thanks very sharen thanks very much uh coming from tonic housing uh we met recently at an event and you gave a really inspiring presentation about the
Work you’re doing we really look forward to following up uh what progress has been made and the work that’s been done by Tonic and Londa London and then looking at other plans as well we’ll then have a a Q&A Pro session and we’ll be joined by Los who’s also worked
Closely with the Gateway team um and we’ll pull together some Q&A and a discussion towards the end of this happy hour um as Sally says do post any questions that you have either for individuals or generally so that we can answer those as we go along at the end
So without further Ado can I give a warm welcome to tan um over to you thanks so much Jeremy um so hello everybody as Jeremy said I’m I’m the diversity and inclusion manager at Anka if you’re not familiar with Anka we specialize in housing and care for over 55s um and we
Operate throughout England we have around 66,000 residents at the moment so um my roomit actually covers diversity and inclusion for both colleagues and residents but today I’d just like to spend a bit of time taking you through our strategic approach to dni for our residents over 2024 and 2025 next slide please s
So um I just want to give you a bit of an overview of the journey that Anka has been on so far in terms of diversity and inclusion so back in um late 2019 there was a decision to um put a diversity and inclusion manager in place
Um and this was with the goal of looking at our diversity and inclusion holistically and seeing how we can improve the business in terms of its inclusivity one of our starting points was to do a bit of a benchmarking exercise so we joined up with an organization called inclusive employers
And they have something called the inclusive employer standard and this was a benchmarking exercise and the first time we went through it was in 2020 we were awarded bronze which we quite pleased with um and this really did Lay the foundation work for us to improve our diversity and inclusion and and one
Of the things that actually got us to Silver the year after was looking at measures of of success and return on investment um and one of the ways that we did that was to make sure that we were asking dni questions in things like our surveys um and making sure that we
Were seeing improvements in things like absenteeism um when it came to uh how our dni initiatives that affected the workforce um but so far that’s very much focused on colleagues where we needed to Branch out a little bit was around residents and when we started thinking
About how we needed to look at dni for residents that’s when we were able to further embed the culture of dni across the organization um and that’s ultimately what led us to gold as well amongst all the fabulous work that um the rest of the organization does in
Conjunction with the dni team um one of the big things around gold and how we managed to attain that was making sure that we had this if you like golden thread through the organization and making sure that everybody knew that it was their responsibility to look at dni
In the same way that my team does um and how we wanted teams to approach that was making sure that their goals their dni goals made sense for them so it was to avoid this blanket approach really so if I take the IT team for example what I
Wanted them to think about is they’re responsible for a lot of the software that we use they’re responsible for the for the tech that we use but when it comes to dni how do they then make that accessible so it was very much them thinking about how they can influence
The dni agenda within their teams rather than this blanket approach like I say so it was a really great start to 2023 for anchor when we were a awarded gold but then made even better in the summer when we were awarded um or accredited by housing diversity Network who gave a
Particular mention to our work that we were doing with the residents next slide please S so uh that then led us on to having a look at our strategic goals for 2024 and Beyond um and whilst the dni agenda is quite big I have obviously condensed it for today to talk you through these three areas which are around resident data resident engagement and Resident
Voice so we do have our colleague strategy as well that still very much exists but where we are particularly focusing our attention this year is is on our residents um so this this kind of comes from some high regulations that are coming from the housing regulator around knowing your residents and
Providing them with um the right level of support and also bearing in mind their diverse needs so with that we have started looking about how to uh improve the quality of our resident diversity data we’ve got a really great story to tell on the colleague side of things and
What we’d really like to do is replicate that so um we will be bringing in our count me Campaign which is a campaign that we run every May to go out to the business and let colleagues know that they need to um refresh their diversity
Data make sure it’s up to date we will also be doing that on the resident side of things as well to make sure that we’ve got a much clearer picture of our resident database and their diverse needs um in doing so then when we’ve got
That robust data so we are hoping to be able to chop that bit data up a little bit and have a look about how underrepresented groups are reporting repairs whether there’s any Trends with complaints ASB hate incidents Etc because what that data then does is allows us to create um more meaningful
Action plans around that support that we’re able to give particularly to underrepresented groups so that’s resident data um but then there’s the the point of engaging your residents as well obviously mentioned that there’s quite a few of them so how do we then reach out to 66,000 residents well we have um
Something we like’s call involved residents and our involved residents are the people that are form part they they belong to formal groups so they might be on our resident Council they might be as part of our scrutiny panel um and we also have dni specific groups too so we
Launched something last year called the resident inclusion Community which is um pretty much what it says on the tin to be honest it’s it’s a group of residents who are focused on diversity inclusion and act as a critical friend to the business on dni matters as well so we’re
Looking to over we’re looking to increase the overall number of involved residents that is that is across both our dni groups and our other formal groups um but with that also looking to increase the inv the the visibility of involved residents from different backgrounds what we can see at the
Moment m is um not a not a great deal actually of diversity amongst our involved residents which we know needs obvious Improvement and we want to do that by um providing a bit of further education around what these groups do why people should get involved um and really start
To Champion those those voices of people from under represented groups in and amongst all this though we do have a fantastic team our resident well-being and involvement team um and they look after initiatives such as be skilled be digital be connected and be well clearly seeing the theme here but in in
Simplistic terms what this all does is make sure that we’ve got a really robust offering for all of our residents and then where my team come in is making sure that we layer diversity and inclusion on top of that um for example when we look at be skilled we’ve
Recently launched a new training program for residents um around allyship and dni and what we would expect is that all of our involved residents would complete that training and then anybody else outside of that can obviously hop onto that b skilled platform and um get themselves involved in that training as
Well so um we want to then continue to promote our services uh in a way that’s accessible and we went through some changes last year in terms of language um particularly language translation services and um tightened up that process a lot and it’s much Slicker now and it just means that um residents
Whose uh language first language isn’t English are able to still access the exact same things as everybody else in a much Slicker way um and that is handled by our customer customer center um and we’re looking to keep broading that out and promoting that as a service as
Well leading on to resident voice then um we’re wanting to Champion role models and share their experiences of living anchor this this is both from A diversity perspective and otherwise I think when we choose to share those real life stories they have much more impact
Than just um not having a face to to the story it’s really important to share those and and um give colleague give residents a voice um that potentially they might not have had before um and then just more of that removing those communication barriers for residents uh and improving the accessibility of our
Services currently I’m I’m working on um a document for all of our residents so they so they know what’s available to them a lot of the time our residents need to be told that they don’t have to um be met with these constant barriers to communication there are things that
We can do um and there are ways that we can um help them um have the right level of access to the same things as all of our other residents we also um wanted to do some work this year in particular around cultural differences uh and particularly when we talk about um generational
Differences as well and this is more for the colleagues to to have that right level of understanding that sometimes when you’re having a conversation with a resident they might use non-verbal cues gestures or body language that can be misinterpreted and we’re wanting to eliminate that as as soon as possible
With um some support and education around that in the form of face to-face training um and then finally digital inclusion which is one of the bits I’m really excited by actually um ana have recently um T taken on a d a digital inclusion officer um and that person will be responsible for basically
Getting residents connected getting them online getting them ready for a more Digital Way of communicating um but from my perspective we just need to make sure that the adjust M and functionality of equipment are um going to allow that to happen because it’s all very good and well
Having this um Vision where we can get all of our residents connected digitally but we need to make sure that that equipment and that functionality serves them just as well as it would someone who might not need reasonable adjustments so we’ve got a really jam-a agenda actually of things that we need
To get done from a resident perspective um and ultimately we want to make sure that we’re going above and beyond the um housing Regulators um demands of us as well um not only do we want to to tick the box so to speak but we’re really quite passionate about making sure that
Um people are living um a life that they enjoy uh and in doing so being able to be celebra for their differences uh and their background so I will leave it there um and hopefully can uh address some of your questions in the chat thank you tan thanks ever that was
Really fascinating and I was struck by what you’re saying and reminded actually of some of the work you’ve been doing over the years around digital inclusion and I remember for a previous happy hour uh we looked at some of the work you were then doing with sparkle at Sparco I
Think they were called yes and so really pleased to hear how that and that you now have a digital inclusion officer and perhaps that’s something we can pick up on in the conversation later so we’re looking at include both from a technical as well social and environmental and
Obviously the human interface as well so thanks very much for set the scene that that was really great so we’re going to move on and I think it’s it’s Becky next isn’t it or is it Shireen just remind me I believe it’s me that’s what I thought yeah for reason
Why my screen went blank and the uh and the agenda went off so thanks ever so for joining us this afternoon and uh uh I’m going to hand over to you the work that you’re doing with h with alen and Hunters lovely thank you very much
Everyone uh it’s good to meet you and thanks for making time this afternoon so just to let you know a little bit about gateway gateway housing uh will be 98 years old this year uh it’s been around for a long time and evolved it and been been called many many names um we
Operate mainly in Tower Hamlet and if you know to Hamlet very well uh it is a positive place for lots of diversity and the name Gateway itself has been coined from the fact that we recognize as a business that most migrants who come into London would settle in Tower
Hamlets uh to make a second life for themselves and homes being so important uh hence the name Gateway is to give them that opportunity to uh create a new life in in in the bar of tower Hamlet so uh that’s the legacy of of Gateway um I’ll begin the presentation now so Sally
For could please go to the first page so building on that picture of diversity then why must housing be diverse you know apart from the Gateway context the UK has been at the Forefront of you know various types of built environment initiatives uh that uh people around the world are proud of
Have you know learned from and so we should continue along that Legacy also there’s several legislations that call for diversity equality acts and everybody knows the nine strands but it must also apply to housing um it must apply to every strand of society and therefore housing also needs to reflect our diversity recently
The building safety act has created a bit of a headache for all of us overcrowding and all sorts you know fire safety again most of this is can be attributed to the diversity of of our homes those are the solutions that we can offer to address some of the
Challenges around that the fire safety act aaps law Etc now communities evolve they are not static and so must we so the homes that Gateway built 98 years ago we must always reflect and ask ourselves if they’re suitable for our community today this provides best value for our customers and also best value
For us as housing providers and as I said Tower Hamlet is a positive m import for diversity and therefore being around this bar for 98 years Gateway knows the bar very well and therefore continuously evolve its services and housing to address the needs of the community we’ve
Also got a legacy of thought leadership so Gateway was the first Housing Association in the bar to introduce older people’s shared ownership which we shared the learning with many years ago uh We’ve also been working with the University of sterling in Scotland um to incorporate the adentia friendly design
Uh into our homes again this is about diversity again this is about understanding our local community uh the the trajectory of uh the elderly population what we build today and and the Legacy we live tomorrow so Sally let’s go on to the next page please so uh our our recent challenge or
The recent challenge with sets for ourselves around our thought leadership has been multigenerational housing and how did this come about um this came about because there was a new executive mayor elected uh for Tower Hamlet and as we always do uh we went to see him the
Chief exec myself and the chair of the board to ask him what he had promised his constituents and how we could play a part in making sure that we met um the needs of the electorates but also our residents and we took away this challenge because the mayor shared
Passionately how the planning system was meeting most of the community’s need but not all of it and that got us curious and the bit that wasn’t being met was uh the the ethnic minority communities and our residents majority of them are from the Bangladeshi uh background and so the
Challenge he set us was well Gateway owns the largest home for the over 55s but the Bangladeshi Community most of them would like to live multi-generationally and so what we end up doing through the planning system is to build these homes for the elderly over 55s and we move Grandpa and Grandma
Out we give the middle family at home and then we move the kids out so in Ence breaking their family uh way of life so that got us curious and we then decided to find out who was going to help us to research this uh uh um um the the M
Challenge make sure that we got the facts right and make sure that we uh put in uh the right utions Housen Learning Network came up as a partner and so we brought them on on board quickly and so they started the research uh for working together with residents Community
Leaders Faith leaders and and and and uh wide network of people including the council so what are we defining as multigenerational housing then it’s any household with two adults who have a gap of 20 years between them or any household where you’ve three separate household living under the same roof but
Must be an adult uh two adults and those two adults must have that 20y year uh Gap so the you know hous Lane have prepared a huge report done a fantastic job spoking to a wide group of people and I’m going to summarize because of time so the bullet points are there the
Key points we found was that multigenerational housing was needed within ethnic minority Community communities just as the mayor had told us overcrowding was an issue that was leading to this challenge but also it was driven by cultural factors where people wanted to live you know close or
Next to each other affordability and the lack of Supply we found made multigenerational housing attractive not just to the Bangladesh Community but to a wider group of our residents Health inequalities was a major issue and if you look at the statistics of tower Hamlet you will be be able to understand
Why and so where people couldn’t afford care for the elderly naturally they had to live multi-generationally but that means they were living or are living sometimes in overcrowded situations so again our research uh highlighted the fact that if we were to build these homes then we really needed to
Understand and also ensure that the space uh brought a richness to the lives of our our residents and communities and including private and communal space was going to be Cru crucial and I’ll come to that later but also affordability Tower Hamlet has the highest one of the highest rates for social housing renters
43% in the bar compared to 23 in London and 16 in the rest of the UK so if we’re going to build these homes then it’s got to be affordable otherwise we’re not going to serve our communities well but also housing L were able to help us
Establish the quantum that we need so for Gateway we’re looking at 25 currently now building up to about 14247 by 2042 but across the bar you can begin to see 8,000 homes needed by 2042 so Gateway is very keen to be part of the solution if we move to the next slide
Please s uh of of this challenge so it’s a complex problem that needs to be solved it’s just not about providing the bricks and mortar there’s lots of things to consider the cost of building these homes for example will the GLA give Grant because it’s larger or will they
Are they going to give gr for you know a normal two bed house as an example uh we need buying across local authorities this is not not just a tower Hamlet issue this is a London UK issue but also policies and procedes will have to change so for example succession
Planning life happens if a family you know loses a member or a member moves into Extra Care and they’re no longer a multigenerational home how are we going to deal with that home you know it’s complex do you move them out then you’ve got the challenge of well the household
Lives next to a school because the children in the household these are complex is issues uh we look at benefits for example will they be disadvantaged because they’re living Under One Roof we look at valuations you look at you know how will we deal with a postal uh system
And you you you’ll see what I’m talking about on the next slide when we get there so these are complex social issues requires collaboration requires Discovery requires learning before implementation but this offers Gateway the ultimate Challenge yet in thought leadership together with the London number of tower hamlets an opportunity
To address major social issues through housing and I’m sure that Gateway will have the ambition to see this through next slide please so here are some of the examples we know that there is a need for multigenerational now but we also know from the housing learning learning uh um
Research that this will sort of uh might change from 20242 onwards therefore the homes we build today we want them to last a 100 years plus so you’ll see here we’re beginning to work with Hunters The Architects on what those prototypes could look like and I know Housen Lane
Have discussed this with residents staff and and and other community groups so for example where families want to live next to each other but not under the same roof you can see type A to your left two uh two bed four homes which will be dedicated for multigenerational
Living where households want to live together you can see that the same two uh Flats now converted into one but they can be reconverted into a single home in future so that’s what we’re thinking of next one please Sally and then here’s another prototype where you’ve got a one bed property uh
Combined with a two bed three to create a multigenerational home again here is an example where families want to live close to each other but not necessarily in the same home take another option where we’ve got a one bed and a three bed five which has been converted into a
Single home so it’s early days yet for Gateway sounds exciting and I know that they will see this through but I believe that there’s a lot of learning already in the sector there are housing associations doing this and the next steps now is to form some sort of
Steering group learn from it and then start to implement it and because of time I will end there thank you very much for your time well Becky thanks very much for giving a real thorough presentation and youve managed to capture you know a long piece of work in
15 minutes expertly and as you say this is a work in work in progress uh you’ve been really great at extracting some of the key points already and I look forward to to further discussion and I know that there are already questions as well as comments in the chat box with
Other projects in particular the the open university project looking at the Bangladeshi community and I know that Sheila and manic are with us this afternoon and they may have some further comments as well well look we’re going to move on and we’re going to stay in
London um but move further west over to the river temps and Shireen I’m going to welcome you and really love you could join us and bring this part of the the conversation to the close so over to you for sure thank you so much um my name is Shireen belligan I’m the community
Manager at tonic um just for background tonic is um the UK’s first LGBT plus AFF firman Housing Association um and we are based in voel the voxel area Albert embankment just across of Westminister but in the heart of voel um we are currently in a building whereby we share
With um another Housing Association so we have 19 properties within um this building which they call Bank house um so where the just based off of um in terms of the dni um conversation that we’re having today the way in which tonic the it all came together in 2014
As in it was established in 2014 but it was actually our community panel who consisted of older LGBT plus people who actually came up with what the vision would be of Ideal housing for people who have the as in living with the experiences that firsthand they could
Actually say that they lived and also just give us um or give at the time I wasn’t there but they that was done in order to make sure that any sort of the facilities or the amenities that were at bank house were convenient enough for them in order to live their lifestyle um
So the community panel basically were the ones that said that they wanted very specific things obviously we knew it wouldn’t be exactly to that but they were very big on having certain things that meant that they can be a community together with other people um and not
Just you know cuz some of them had have had lived in a time where um being a lesbian woman or a gay man or anyone within the LGBT plus Community then was almost you know illegal for some people’s Generations so they wanted to be sure that they could actually you
Know our slogan is live live our lives out live living their lives out so the whole you know this steering process of this was just to make sure that they were able to do that safely H in a in a place where it was a judgment free zone
And um because we was very aware about sharing the building with the another houseing Association um we wanted to be sure that everyone that the inclusive the inclusivity was something that wasn’t just being done at tonic so we’ve always said that we wanted to make sure
That there was never a them and US situation so um that was you know a big a big thing for us to make sure that everyone in the building whether it be by training or just by conversation and engagement was very aware of tonic and obviously everyone just respecting one
Another so um you know it was things like um you know they they mentioned about having things like a laundry room a lounge a small Library area guest suite and these are all things that you know Bank house did actually have there which made it really uh um something it
It encouraged us to obviously go with with with that um with the selection of Bank house and even down to having the building being a wheelchair accessible building it was things that was factored in for people who weren who had mobility issues basically so all of those kind of
Things were a a big important Pinnacle for for Tonic to ensure that you know in the best way we wanted everyone for it to be an inclusive space basically um it also included things that having 24-hour care services so a lot of our residents
Who do live with us now so it’s a where it’s a retirement community it’s from the age of it’s 55 and overs but a lot of the people that we have living with us at bank House made it very clear that even though they may not require care
Services as of right now because they were living and thriving they really wanted to be in a space whereby they could be amongst people who you know were aware of who they are and how they identified and it was more of a comfortable space to grow old in
Basically more comfortably with the care um there um which is provided by uh another organization um called care Outlook actually so um you know so those were really important factors about making sure that the building in itself was um um sorry making sure that the building in itself was just basically um
As best as it could be for what the community panel had said that it should what they envisioned it to be almost like a perfect ideal setting for them so in terms of with um where we are right now we provide shared ownership Apartments so it’s one and two bedroom
Apartments we have 19 in total um at the minute we have 11 residents who live there and we are very aware that um being only able to accept shared ownership because that’s where we are we are currently at a stage where we only have um shared ownership opportunities
For people but as an organization us along with our board we’re very aware that we want to Branch out for people who are older gbt plus people um who may not be in a position where they can actually buy into the scheme there’s people who are on our waiting lists or
Register of interest list as we call it who have expressed their interest for rental properties and this is something obviously because we we don’t want to just be seen as we’re just targeting like one you know one group of people within the LGBT plus Community we do
Want to um get to a point where we have people who are from other marginalized groups within the LGBT plus Community as well as um so you know people from the trans Community people of color within the trans community and um we just want
To be we we need to get to a point where we become a registered provider so once we get there that will mean that we are able to offer the rental opportunities for people at the minute we do a lot of community Le um events and activities
Whereby we can encourage or invite these people to join us in our social um events that we have or activities that we lead throughout the week um just so that we continue to engage with them so we do this by speaking to other organizations you know from um we’ve
Worked with people like queer Circle um we do intergenerational stuff as well with um people like Shooters Hill six form College um lambur for auk Stonewall housing who have drop in sessions whereby they assist people with housing queries or housing needs and although we can’t Direct IR L say to them um you
Know we can offer them a property with with by going cuz um although although we wish we could of course although we know that we are only small in numbers at the minute and we also can’t provide the rental so more houseing having the drop in enables us to form relationships
With some of these people so they can continue the discussion about when we eventually get to the point of being a registered provider and have the rental properties to offer to some of these individuals so um in terms of like um Becky mentioned because I made a few
Notes um because sadly I don’t have my video everyone had their slides I actually had a video to show you of one of our residents who has um now sadly passed away but it was just to basically summarize where we are as tonic and what you know what tonic is about what it
Means to the people that live at bank house and it just perfectly summarized um how what I’m basically saying in terms of just feeling like they don’t have to continually explain who they are what they like why they like it coming from a time where that was basically
What they had to Contin continually do by almost backing up how and why they wanted to live their lives the way they do so um it was a perfect summary for where I’m going with all of this but um I just wanted to just also mention what
Becky said about making sure that you know having the what we had as a community panel like the Steering group to lead it down talking to the people who have firsthand you know know about the situations that they’re in and what will be ideal housing for them I do
Genuinely think that that’s a great idea and believe that the community panel as well as obviously the GLA who um with the the loan that we were the loan in order to get the place of Bank house with the properties the community panel were a big force in making sure that the
Selection of Bank house and us being in that location was um ideal for the people that we was in um who now live at bank house so um I just wanted to completely second what you said about that I think it’s um played a big part in ensuring that the residents that live
There right now are actually happy um so just through conversations with them as the community manager they’ve always made it clear that they’re very grateful and happy that places like tonic exist because when they were growing up they didn’t ever imagine that it would be a place whereby it would ever exist in
This world or in their lifetime so the hopes is that not only us being at voxal the hopes is that eventually it’ll be in other areas cuz it’s not just in southeast London where there’s older LGBT plus people like we said we’re in a diverse world so if places like tonic
Can exist to show the you know the the many different people that live there with from many different walks of lives it will I mean we could just imagine what would be like I guess so um but yes I don’t know how I’m doing with time but but thank you so
Much well thank you sharen that was great and uh it’s been really great seeing tonic progress um over the last few years I I think you said 10 years nearly from the Inception um and it’s it’s come a long long way not just at bank house but I also think in terms of
How It’s informing and influencing a national conversation about this and we’re seeing developments being proposed and taken forward in a number of other cities at England uh and across the UK so I think you know you’ve been pioneering as well so uh it’s been great
To see that come to fruition and for you to share with us today from a from a community perspective you know what’s happening on the ground so to thanks ever so much uh before we break for sort of a conversation and answer some of the questions and and take some of the chat
I just wanted to ask Lois if she had any observations from either the work with Gateway but also Lois I know that you repres presented the ly on some work with other Southeast Asian communities um in other parts of the country we’ve been probably a little bit more London
Centric this afternoon but you’ve also done work in West Yorkshire and other places so do you have any observations from that and other work that Lynn’s been involved in yeah I’m happy to reflect I mean it was yeah I can sort of talk about um our experience do doing
Work Gateway um but also kind of how we’ve worked in other areas and perhaps some of the findings in those areas have been quite different in terms of the housing needs of of different diverse groups of people so um I guess before we started work with Gateway we’ we’
Completed some working Turles um so obviously complete different geography and that sort of had indicated that actually there was a need for kind of um what we’ve kind of defined as culturally competent um sheltered housing so there was actually quite a a demand through the research that we did where we spoke
To kind of was 400 people through sort of surveys and and focus groups that indicated there was a sort of there was actually a demand for um not not necessarily multigenerational housing but you know housing option for old people from um minority communities um within the kirky’s area particularly
Looking at kind of what a sheltered housing offer might look like so it was quite interesting to us when we sort of came to do the Gateway piece of work where we we spoke to kind of people in in that kind of local Town Hess context which actually indicated actually a lot
Of people were were still quite Keen to live multigeneration so it kind of just shows that there’s there’s lots of different views around kind of how people might might live um in later life from different communities um and so yeah that that for me was a really important reference I guess another
Thing that struck me through the Gateway work was around you know thinking about the future um so we spoke to some people sort of my age they sort of in their 30s around you know what would what would they want and I know Bey kind of touched
On this and actually it would it was it was a conversation I think that people may not have actually had before and it was quite interesting to hear them talk about the changes that might happen um culturally in terms of living with you know Mom and Dad or or family relatives
Um for people that are my age that might might not necessarily thinking about it their children for example so that was a really interesting thing and I think it links into what Becky was saying around having to plan for the future and ensuring that properties can adapt to
That is really is really crucial and I I think one of the one of the kind of recommendations we were looking at was around using existing properties as well so how we might be able to use existing homes where people actually one of the things we heard was that people just
Want to live really close by and next to each other so how how can we support that with existing housing stock so yes just a couple of Reflections on kind of what we’ve learned so far that’s that’s really helpful and I think you know if if manik and uh and Sheila were were
Sort of more visible rather than just being present they’ll talk about of the real interesting sort of dialogues and actually uh co-producing through co- research uh with local communities of all ages uh to both to sort of unlock some of that understanding multer generality as you me Generation
Generation but also to think about the the both the private sector as well as the move to social housing and thinking about what has been provided um and how that links into more strategic planning as well but so thanks very much um for all that um I’m going to move on to some
Of the questions I know one or two have been answered already and also I noted that there also a few posted into the chat box as well so what I’ll do is I’m going to start off with the Q&A box um and uh um Shireen you started answering
This in in the presentation and there’s a question here um I think it’s Leela or Lila um I’m curious to hear how you found being a community manager was this quite a naturally forming Community or if not how was the process of creating that Community feeling
Okay um I was literally taing to this as well but um I I’m Still Still the community manager and I found uh I’m trying to not sound cliche but the reason why it was so easy like so natural for me is just because I automatically have a natural respect for
Older people anyway there’s not really it’s just more about how I was just raised at from my nerian parents so when I met them I didn’t and when I meet other older people it’s never a thing of you know you never really asked your elders questions so and that’s sort of
How they were were referred to as the elders so I was just like okay well you’re older than me and I respect you so I think with that it was just very easy for me to for them to feel comfortable with me um and vice versa
There the people that do live there are very welcoming and I guess like I said because of what they’ve already experienced they there wasn’t really room for any hostility because of what they’ve already experienced if that makes sense so because of how I guess their teens
Into you know being adults as older for example the video I was going to show of the individual that had passed away whose name was Lydia um I guess there’s just certain conversations we could have and there was just understanding there so um it wasn’t much in that I really
Had to do I was just being myself and as they were and um it just kind of fell into place and it still does till today so um yeah kind that’s how I did it that’s great and I must confess I’ve been to the scheme and had a Gonic
Evening there as well although I’m not sure there was much gin but there PL of tonic in many ways so was a great use of the pan of the word as well um G’s joined us this afternoon lovely to have you here gaer and welcome back for those
Of you who don’t know gaer has been our east of England Regional lead in the past and worked across um the Health and Social care economy and she asked you did tan particular did you encounter any obstacles from colleagues and do you anticipate any from the
Residents um I think when when it came to the colleague side of things the colleagues were actually very receptive um and I think it definitely helps when you’ve got a senior leadership team that constantly filtering that message down and are actually really behind um the the messaging around uh diversity and
Inclusion our CEO um before she was the CEO was our dni sponsor and then she continued to do that when she when she would became CEO um two years ago so I I’m very much um aware of the fact that I I’ve not had to work too hard to
Convince our senior leadership team that dni is a good idea and that’s a very separate conversation for another time so for the colleague side of things um it has it has landed very well and people have been very receptive where we’ve probably seen some more barriers is definitely on the resident side of
Things um and what we’re trying to do is understand um people’s um need to see slow change and I think one one you could go in really quickly and want to change lots of things but actually it’s all about taking a step back and recognizing what those residents would
Actually want from dni agenda um and a lot of it is at the moment is focused around accessibility and also much like what shireen’s saying particularly with our lgbtq residents understanding that they’ve probably come from a place where they’ve had to self-edit and where they’ve had to uh really think about the
The type of environment that they’re living in so providing them with that rather than this um the the the way we introduced it on the colleague side of things requires very different things um and I do think that once we have uh settled more into our resident DNA
Agenda um it will continue to be received well to be honest that’s great I’m G to ask Becky a couple of questions that’s all right Becky I think you answered one in the um in the chat box from Adam Thomas um around sort of issues around multigenerational kitchen design and and
Making those uh regulation compliant do you just want to sort reiterate this point about the lifetime home standards and accessibility yes of course yeah so we when we build these homes I think I said we want them to last for a long time we don’t want to go back knock them down
And redo them so as a matter of course we build homes to um the lifetime home standards anyway but then we will go further and select a number of homes where we will build them to adaptable standards an adaptable standard means that it will it’s got the
Space and it’s ready to be adapted in future should a resident need it we don’t have to rewire it’s all there and that’s been done we build some to accessible standards these are the ones where straight away we’ve got the adjustable kitchen worktops the adjustable wash hand basins so we might
We will do this based on intelligence and the need within the community so yes in every scheme we build we’ve got these life stand life um what’s the word h lifetime standard across board a number will be adaptable and a number will be accessible you’re muted I realized sorry
About that that’s the first of the year um I I was then going to ask a question that Anna’s posted in about reer but I think you partially answered that uh about sort of thinking about um what the implications of the property for refer of development supposed to standard
Build are there any other points that you wanted to mention she touches for example on things like succession planning yes of course so yes that’s a key issue I think Lor also mentioned that there are two aspects to this uh multigenerational housing can be brought forward through existing stock and in
Fact it’s one of the things that when I had a meeting with the members of the council they said why don’t you pilot it using an ex existence stock let’s learn from it before we roll it onto the new build side so yes we can refurbish and
And that’s the many ways of doing that and I know housing associations like uh family Mosaic before they became Peabody did things like that it’s not new where you expand it for a multigenerational family but on the new build side and where we we’re going to build this from
Scratch again is thinking about the fact that the communities will evolve then we want to be in a position to maybe re fish or divide that property in future and we want to be able to do it cost effectively so the designs will need to think about how that would be done now
Not in future so where we’re putting the pluming how we’re POS positioning the structural walls need to allow for that in future so plan now that’s that’s that’s the the say and then you save in future it wouldn’t be overly costly to put that home back uh in in future
Either open it up or put it into two separate homes it won’t cost that much well question that’s really helpful um I’m just going to stick to the sort of design things because again not in the Q&A box with those of youve been scaring the chat box Duncan raises an
Interesting point about the learning around multigenerational homes now this may again be you more Becky um but that he says in gler we’re keen to provide double occupancy homes and then he describes the issues around that and then saying that some of the operators mainly the Housing Association are s of
Offering other types of accommodations so instead of looking at two bedroom four person they’re they’re going three bedroom five person or four bedroom six are there any have you I don’t know if you’ve seen this question so may I have have you thoughts on this for to share or County Council or city
Council yeah I empathize Duncan I know that when you’re the Forefront you’re seeing these residents and you know the needs and you can sense the frustration in families wanting a suitable home at a same time I also see you know the The Challenge from the housing association’s
Point of view because they’re looking at funding they’re looking at cost you know they’re looking at you know this is what we can afford and I think these things can be possible at a strategic level when there’s partnership because for example if you the your the County Council agree that by bringing one
Multigenerational home forward actually that accounts to three then you encourage a house Association to do more but when they go into the planning uh you know uh planning uh process and the officers dealing with it don’t have the Strategic understanding and are assessing the issue as apples for apples
Then the housing associations will get discouraged because it’s going to cost them more they’re going to bring fewer properties because these are larger homes and it’s going to cost them more and nobody’s going to give them additional grants for it so you need a strategic leadership thought thing you
Know process to make these things uh possible yeah no that’s helpful thank thanks for that in the meantime just to say uh Sally’s posted a Blog the gaer has written for the ly some time ago but I think this is following a was it a Winston church or Fellowship gaer
Possibly it was but thanks very much for that and we’ve posted that in the chat box um there were a couple of questions that I wanted to um ask which I think Tegan you started answering or may have answered but I did think just in case
People haven’t picked up on it um one of them was around who you use for translations uh do you just want to just to share that information more widely yeah absolutely so we use a company called codex at the moment um they do our language translations and they also
Do our Braille translations um and how we um have the system at the moment is that um we will log on Northgate um whether that person needs the that translation along any other amongst any other accessibility requirements that they have um we will that will then go
Away with the document codex will do all the magic in the background she fabulous and then that’ll come back to us and one of the key things we do as well is we store them um centrally because uh there’s every OPP it’s likely that for example if someone asks us to uh
Translate a tency agreement into eru chances are that may well happen again and providing that that that um tency agreement hasn’t changed substantially we’ve already got it there ready to use within anchor rather than having to um go through that process again with codex brilliant if it’s so K can I just
Continue because I also asked about um do you include age as a diversity category and you did start answering this so well you may well have answered it so do you just want to reiterate what you said yeah absolutely so yes we do um and that’s part of our dashboard that we
Collect age data on both our colleague and Resident side um our organization’s average age the colleague side is around 47 um and on the resident side it’s around 65 so yes um age is a big component to the way that we look at diversity and inclusion as well um we
Did um some research with a think tank called Demas last year around the Platinum pound and that was around um how we’re losing billions as a as a country um by not making sure that over 50s are back in the workplace postco um and how we can support that as well but
On the other side of that you’ve obviously got supporting residents later on in life and one of the big things things for us is making sure that we future proof our homes we know that we’ve got an aging population and that people are living longer uh and
Ultimately that might come with um more health concerns it might come with um more reasons to have a look at accessibility so we have then have to make sure that our new developments are um designed in a way that that takes that into consideration um so yes age is
Definitely a big factor for us Anor yeah thanks for that and I know that um we have a Blog coming out this week which looks at some of the issues around age diversity from a planning perspective as well and looking at what loal authorities can be doing under the
National planning policy frame but I’m I’m conscious you’re talking more from a Workforce and a residence perspective but also strategically how to think that through is important um and again I think Becky asked a question about owner occupiers and you know I think Shireen you talked about V various s tenure
Options as well do either of you have any thoughts about whether the sort of initiatives and the way you’re work sort of enables people who own occupiers also to be included in these conversations I’ll let you I’ll let you answer first sh as in with regards to
The sorry I think you I think you I can’t remember did you say shared ownership and social rented yes so all we have right now is shared ownership there’s not outright ownership but again perhaps some of the people moving to your schemes have been former own homeowners yeah so again are there
Examples of sort of how to engage with the communities through that oh um so with the sorry I’m sorry I’m not quite getting what you’re asking as in the people that have yeah the question from Beck is really trying to understand you know how how are these initiatives of
Targeting more owner occupiers um rather than just social housing or perhaps shared ownership you had any experience either from the shared ownership or people who’ve been formerly homeowners what about living in the communities as homeowners all right okay so with the people that have come from oh like you
Said so with our shed owners yet shed owners yes they have come from selling their homes and in terms of their um oh sorry so with how their experiences as in their lived experiences of where they’re coming from they’re sort of mainly friendship groups because of a
Lot of them don’t have um so if it’s a a couple they tend a lot of them don’t tend to have like children who they know um so a lot of them get a lot of advice and conversations from their friendship groups who sort of are doing similar
Things by being homeowners but for the ones that have taken the step into being at bank house it’s more to do around with their health and knowing that there’s an option to adapt the properties that we have at bank house because it’s almost like a the most
Modernized blank canvas for them if they do need adaptations or if they do need to tweak like the uh certain things so we’ve got like they they’ve done it in a way whereby for example with the bathrooms you don’t have a bathtub in there but everything’s at good height
For if and when they end up in a situation whereby they will need uh an aid to walk with or something so they’ve set everything at certain levels even down to the sockets to switch is the Taps the the splashes and everything in the apartment so um yeah there’s there’s
There’s less to do for them once and if they do move into bank house but there’s still obviously the conversation about because it’s something they will have to obviously pay for um to get done there is the concern about making sure that it’s affordable what they’re about to do
As in if they’re about to take on a big adaptation there is still that cost that they will be considering um so um yeah does that does that make sense does and I think what you’re saying which I probably didn’t articulate well enough is you know what is the exclusion that
Many people feel in the community but also then overlay that with perhaps increasing Frailty or age or health reasons and again what you’ve talked about I think is the the sort of link to Compassionate Care that the community at tonic both build provide the resilience themselves but also accessing through
Tonic so no I think you did that’s great thank you minutes and I just want to come quickly to Lee Lee asked one of the first questions which is how would you address substance use or disorders is this something that’s big in the sort of the work that you’re doing tan for
Example no no not not for us we we are very much focused on um over 55 later living um and that would be um it would be a secondary need but it’s certainly not something that I know anything about unfortunately well Le I’m going to come
Back to you on this just to say this is an area that we’re very keen on at the at the house England you may know that the team have worked uh with agencies involved with in alcohol drug rehabilitation and support um so it is something we will pursue uh both in
Looking at in terms of um mental health as well and looking at mental well-being so do watch this space we will come do and do some f future happy hours on that um once we’ve uh once we s worked out our full program for our spring summer
Series so do do watch this space and finally I just want to conclude with a question that was posted near the end Peter Peter Monk asks about active travel um and issues more broadly around encouraging sort of umy you know sort around cycle routes and the infrastructure um uh I was just
Wondering what we think about how well housing Lin Partners collecting the recent public expenditure select committee report into the design of new older people’s housing so this is uh it’s probably much more linked to public transport and that infrastructure including cycle ways any any immediate thoughts from Becky or Shireen or
Tan pass this one I’m afraid yeah no Peter I think it’s probably slightly too technical for us in this s session and uh perhaps it’s again something we can engage with us um out off out of this happy hour perhaps we can do a a separate happy hour on highways and
Infrastructure uh with active travel uh I know that active travel gave evidence recently also to the the committee Report on health and housing as well so there’s some really important links there to be made well look I’m I’m conscious it’s coming up to 5 if not
Already five and I would like to on behalf of the housing ly thank Tegan Shireen and Becky for your fantastic contributions and presenting Lois can I thank you for your Reflections and your your comments as well uh can I thank the team behind the scenes for for putting
On the happy hour for those of you who uh saw in the chat box um Sally did post the um the video that Shireen was unable to show in fact we were unable to show it wasn’t your fault at all Shireen unfortunately the system let us down
Right at the last minute uh and we will also send that uh with the with the recording um and the link to that video uh after this happy hour session uh this was our first happy hour session of the year it was a one-off and a special because we felt this was really
Important we’re actually going to continue the theme of equality at diversity and inclusion in our upcoming housing L Summit if you haven’t already checked it out we’ve just posted the link thanks Sally in the in the chat box and there is a dedicated SE session on I think it’s the Wednesday morning which
Must be the 28th of February uh where we’re looking at the work including with Sheila and manik and and and uh bashier from bangler Housing Association uh as well as work from University of Worcester on their dementia project and some of the work that housing 21 are
Actively engaged in as well and I believe um Hina is at hington 21 who formerly was at Stonewall making the link with some of the things that tan was saying uh earlier so uh can I thank everybody for a fantastic session again um the we will close abruptly and then
For those of you who are staying on please do complete the short questionnaire that really helps us to uh to sort of tailor our happy hour webinars in the future as well so thanks everybody and have a pleasant evening