Case Studies

A chance to learn

Residents at a sheltered scheme in Brandon have been able to learn all about computers – from online shopping to interactive games. We spent £700 on a new PC for Heathcote House and ever since residents have been enjoying afternoons discovering the worldwide web.

Orbit Supported Housing Officer, Lyndsay Sawyer, said: “One lady who lives there is computer literate and she has been helping the others. Some of the residents requested it, others were apprehensive because new technology frightens people. More and more of them are starting to use it, which is good because it is a world of information.”

A chance to play

When Springfield House, a mother and baby hostel in Milton Keynes, asked us for £2,500 to provide young parents with a play area for their children we were more than happy to help. The hostel was able to buy a wendy house and springy cat rocking horse with the money.

“The idea behind the play equipment was to help young mums to be responsible and identify dangers,” said project worker, Fiona Ward.

A chance to do things independently

As a new resident in a sheltered housing scheme it is important to feel that you still have the independence you enjoyed when living alone. The staff at St Augustine’s Place, Gorleston, were aware that residents not having their own washing machines may be a hurdle to that, so they asked us to help provide a laundry room so that people could carry on doing their own washing if they wished.

Orbit Housing Officer, Carol Holliman,said: “Tenants were unable to do their washing which was taking awaytheir independence. Your laundry is quite a personal thing really."

Making a difference to family life

For some time, the Hart family’s days had been punctuated by dad Les’ dialysis treatment. It is a constant presence in their lives and something it is very hard to forget about, particularly as the equipment takes up a lot of room in the house.

The situation had become such a problem that the family appealed to Orbit Charitable Trust for help to extend their home to allow them some much needed space. We gave over £5,000 towards the work so that the Harts could build a new extension creating an extra room.

Wife, Julie Hart, said: “Everything was revolving around the dialysis machine, everything was cramped. We were struggling for space and we couldn’t afford to remortgage the house because if my husband was to become ill he could
need time off work. It will make all the difference to us as a family. We will
have a better quality of life.”

The new space will provide the family’s eight-year-old son with his own bedroom and will allow Les to have the dialysis machine by his bed so he can have his treatment overnight rather than having to take four hours out of his daily routine.

Supporting older and disabled people in the community

Improving older and disabled people’s quality of life is part of our core work. That is why we donated £12,000 to Care and Repair England, a charity that shares this ethos. Care and Repair’s work involves responding to what older people believe is important and innovating new services around that.

Director, Sue Adams, said: “Core funding is invaluable as it enables us to do things that are crucial but are not in the self contained project format that other
funders may prefer.”

Core funding enabled Care and Repair to maintain close links with older people’s groups, extend existing networks at policy level, make representations to government.

Orbit's Care & Repair Service

Set up over twenty years ago, Care & Repair is aimed at improving the quality of people's lives by carrying out work to their homes that enable them to live independently. The current projects cover areas in the Midlands and in East Anglia, but the aim is the same wherever people live.

Jobs can range from large-scale house extensions, providing a new bathroom or bedroom, to small jobs such as security locks or smoke alarms to make the home safer for people to live in. The Trust often makes up the difference between the cost of the work and that which can be paid for by the local authority under a Disabled Facilities Grant.

In Coventry, the service also provides home safety checks and a Handyperson scheme. Two groundbreaking initiatives have been the hospital discharge scheme in conjunction with the Primary Care Trust, involving carriyng out work to enable patients to return home instead of occupying much needed beds, and Crisis Support, involving very vulnerable people, many with learning disabilities or complex needs.

New beginnings

Sometimes when residents arrive at Wellington Road, a supported housing projects for ex-offenders and vulnerable homeless people in East Dereham, they only have the clothes on their backs. Our £1,000 grant buys starter packs which helps ensure that each new arrival has their own bedding, cutlery and kitchen appliances. This helps make the transition back to independent living easier.

“As most of the residents come straight from prison they have nothing,” says Vicky Garner, project manager at the hostel. “It’s a huge benefit to them to come in and have sheets, quilts, pillows, plates and cutlery. Then, when they move on to their own flat, they take the things with them.

I honestly do not know what we would do without this grant and the guys really do appreciate it. They are so grateful and thankful.”

Providing solid foundations

One thing we understand is an organisation’s need to be sustainable. We know it is impossible for voluntary and community sector groups to provide invaluable services to the community without knowing they have the vital funding they need just to remain in existence.

That is why we committed £20,000 of our funds to the Make It Happen project run by HACT (Housing Associations Charitable Trust). The money was used along with funding from local government to help small almshouses to build more sustainable futures.

A number of small organisations received funding for IT equipment, training and consultants’ fees and we have been told that the almshouses felt this had made a significant if not critical difference to their cause.

Almshouses

Almshouses are the oldest form of what we today call social housing and depend on voluntary support for their work. In some cases, their original purpose is not relevant in today's very different society and, in others, there are no longer people willing or able to be trustees.

It was against this background that we were approached by the Charity
Commission to become the corporate trustee of the Almshouse Charity of Edmund Sawyer and Others in Kettering, Northamptonshire. The charity owned three cottages which were being upgraded with a grant from the local authority and two enlarged properties emerged from the work.

Since coming under the Trust's control, we have invested further in the properties, spending over £40,000 on bringing them up to the Government's Decent Homes standard and they are now let on comparable rents to other social housing in the locality.

Building on our experience, in conjunction with The National Association of Almshouses, we held a seminar for trustees in Leamington Spa in 2005, supported by the Housing Associations Charitable Trust and Orbit Group.