What’s next for Together with Tenants?

Back in spring 2019, the NHF launched Together with Tenants our sector-wide initiative focused on strengthening the relationship between residents and housing association landlords. This included 130 housing associations who agreed to act as Together with Tenants early adopters delivering a charter with six commitments to drive change.

Currently over 200 housing associations have adopted Together with Tenants representing two million homes - almost 83% of homes NHF members own. We are pleased with this progress but our ambition is for all housing associations to adopt Together with Tenants. Not only does it signal our sector’s intent to strengthening our relationship with residents, but we also believe delivering the commitments in the charter can deliver meanginful long-term change.

Latest update

As the legislation to bring forward the proposals in the Social Housing White Paper emerges, we have been talking to politicians and officials about the progress we have already made through Together with Tenants. We understand that members are preparing for the implementation of the Tenant Satisfaction Measures and more proactive consumer regulation, but we are keen to keep sight of the commitments we have made to residents through the Together with Tenants charter.

Our focus now is to work with members and residents to strengthen the impact of Together with Tenants.

We will continue to:

• Encourage organisations to sign up and signal our sector’s commitment to being more open, transparent, and accountable.
• Encourage those who have signed up to work towards the commitments openly and with their residents and share good practice and learning as they go.
• Support organisations who have signed up and encourage them to embrace the challenges that come with being a Together with Tenants adopter.

Our Tenant Advisory Panel has brought challenge, credibility and insight to our work – they have genuinely co-created a sector-wide initiative that we hope will make a difference in the lives of housing association residents. We continue to work closely with them and you will see them promoting Together with Tenants at our meetings and conferences.

Our Member Steering Group has pushed us to be ambitious and bold with Together with Tenants. Members of the group have now become ambassadors – they will continue to promote the initiative, encourage other housing associations to sign up, share good practice, and let us know where they think we need to take action to keep things on track. We have asked other housing associations who are leading the way with Together with Tenants to join our ambassadors' group, bringing the total number up to 30 members.

Supporting members

To support members adopting Together with Tenants, we have developed a library of case studies to promote learning and share good practice across the sector. The case studies will be published on our website and officially be launched during our Together with Tenants webinar on 17 May.

The webinar and case studies will focus on how housing associations and residents are working together using Together with Tenants and provide practical examples of how Together with Tenants adopters have worked with residents to make a real step-change in trust and accountability. This will give a good insight for other organisations at different stages on their Together with Tenants journey.  

We will also hear from two housing associations about the successful work they have done to improve their approach to resident engagement with examples of different approaches adopters have implemented with Together with Tenants, with the aim of providing inspiration, ideas and support to members. Find out more info about the webinar.

Please contact us if your organisation has already adopted Together with Tenants but needs further support and advice, or if you are considering becoming a Together with Tenants adopter – we would love to hear from you.