Worthing Homes - Sussex Business Heroes

As a housing association we have over 10,000 customers so the moment lockdown was announced we knew we had to increase the support we offer!

With nearly 1000 of our residents being in the vulnerable category we have been calling these people weekly to ensure they are okay and don’t feel isolated. Our financial inclusion team, coordinators and customer experience team have been working with those residents that have been furloughed or made redundant to help them with Universal Credit applications, setting up rent payment plans, fuel vouchers and funding to help with unexpected costs such as the breakdown of a kitchen appliance.  

Having secured £15k from our connection with the Big Lottery we have been providing weekly food parcels to approximately 50 of our vulnerable residents, with spare parcels going to East Worthing Food Bank and Adur and Worthing Council to assist them.

We also answered a plea from the A&E staff at Worthing Hospital, whose staff room TV had given up, buy purchasing a new TV for them and put £600 into the Supporting Frontline Staff fund to help purchase other items.

A few of our colleagues are also assisting the council with their work to ensure those in need in the community get the help they need, we have colleagues who have taken roles as neighbourhood leads and others that have volunteered to assist the end user.