Coronavirus: an update from us

The main changes for our customers are;

• The move to emergency repairs and maintenance only
• More conversations taking place over the phone that might have been face to face before

We know there will be lots of other changes for our customers in their daily lives, and it’s a really difficult time. We’re here to help, and our team are on standby to have conversations with any customers who are worried.

The situation is very fast moving, and as a team we are focussed on digesting these changes quickly and doing the right things for our customers and colleagues.

We’ll keep you updated as the situation evolves.

Our call centre team are all working from home, to provide exactly the same service to our customers. They made this move really quickly, and there has been no reduction to service.

If you would like further information about Coronavirus, please visit the NHS website.

We know that everyone is finding the current situation difficult. There are lots of great organisations who can help. We’ve selected a few here:

Mind offers a range of support and advice on mental health. Call: 0300 123 3393 or visit the Mind website.

Samaritans offers Free, confidential support 24 hours a day, to those experiencing despair, distress or suicidal feelings. Call: 116 123 or visit the Samaritans website.

The government provides

• Guidance for the public on the mental health and wellbeing aspects of coronavirus (COVID-19) 
• Information on supporting children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing 

Let’s Talk Loneliness. If you are feeling lonely or isolated there are a number of organisations that you can talk to. You can find more information by visiting the Let's Talk Loneliness website.

We understand this is a really difficult situation for some of our customers. Our team are on standby to help you with this and make sure you get the support you need.

To help, we’ve introduced some new policies and advice. You might be able to pay less for a while. Although you will still have to pay the balance at a later date, we will set a sensible repayment agreement with you and you can be confident that this situation will not affect your tenancy with us.

Our Housing Managers are contacting customers directly to discuss what you need but they might not manage to reach everyone so don’t hesitate to call us.

If you need to speak to us more urgently, call our team on 0345 141 4663 so that we can discuss your circumstances and help put in place the things you need to lessen any concerns you have about paying your rent.

If you can’t pay your rent or service charge because you normally go out to pay it, and you’re currently in isolation, call the team on 0345 141 4663.

If you have any questions about benefits, please visit the government Help to Claim service.

We have a financial inclusion team who are on standby to help. If you are contacting our customer service centre and are concerned about this, you can be referred to this specialist team.

For the health and well-being of our colleagues and contractors, we have made the difficult decision to move to carrying out emergency repairs only for the near future.

Customers can still log non-emergency repairs with us, and we will be in touch to discuss the best time to complete these. We are not able to provide timescales for this at the moment.

If you needed an emergency repair, our contractor or colleague attending would be social distancing. This means they may ask you to stay in another room. They will also be wearing all of the right protective equipment to protect their and your health and wellbeing.

Yes, our customer service team is working as normal or you can report a repair on the website.

Our priority is customer and colleague safety. We are now doing limited work in areas where our colleagues and contractors can distance themselves safely. Before we start any of this work, we carry out risk assessments and we are making sure all colleagues are aware of the right way of carrying out any jobs safely.

Our customers have been brilliant during this period and really understanding of our approach to repairs. We are currently delivering emergency repairs, but will start to deliver others where we can do so safely over the coming weeks.

We are assessing applications for rented housing a little differently at the moment to make sure we can continue to help people who urgently need to move. This includes, in some cases, working with local authorities who have asked for our help to house individuals or families in an emergency. If you do not urgently need to move at the moment, we may ask you to wait a little longer, in line with government guidance which says that people should avoid moving home at the moment.

Our new policies and procedures about rent payments apply to shared ownership customers as well. Although you will still have to pay the balance at a later date, we will set a sensible repayment agreement with you.

If you are buying a shared ownership property and have concerns about payments, contact our team on 0800 073 0600.

If you already own a shared ownership property and are worried about your rent payments, you can contact our team on 0345 141 4663.

You don’t need to tell us, but you should self-isolate as the government advises. If you need an emergency repair, we will ask if you are self-isolating as part of any conversations before the repair is booked.

We are contacting all customers, starting with our more vulnerable customers. We are phoning everyone to check in on their welfare, and whether they need any help. If we can’t get in touch over the phone after 3 attempts, we are emailing and after that, we will follow our welfare check procedure.

We’ve communicated with all customers about being good neighbours in our latest Homelife magazine, and we’ll be dealing with any ASB complaints as we normally would. It isn’t our role to check that people are following social distancing (i.e. children playing out), however our housing teams will be reminding people if necessary.

As an organisation we are very aware of the potential impact of the current, challenging and continually changing situation with Covid-19 and the additional financial pressures being placed on all of our suppliers.

We want to assure you that we have robust and tested procedures in place that allow our Accounts Payable and key payments staff to work remotely. We use a web based purchase to pay system which gives us complete flexibility, our colleagues can log in remotely to receipt goods received, deal with any invoice holds, process and approve invoices and make payments.

We want to support all of our suppliers during these uncertain and unprecedented times. We will continue to meet our contractual payment arrangements.

Invoices for purchase orders

You should where possible use the iSupplier portal to submit your invoice, this will ensure that should there be any issues with the postal system or a reduction in capacity from our scanning partner, your invoice will not be impacted.

Invoices for non-purchase order payments

Please continue to submit your invoices directly to the existing postal and email addresses that you use now. Please be aware that any issues with mail deliveries could delay the processing of your invoice, if you currently submit invoices for payment using Royal Mail we would encourage you to liaise with your existing Home Group contacts to secure email addresses where you can send your invoices.

Our Accounts Payable team can be reached by calling 0300 131 0051 or by emailing accountspayable@homegroup.org.uk

In May the government shared this letter covering a range of topics including information on Mental Health and support for domestic abuse victims.