TCUK HOMES

About TCUK Homes

TCUK Homes is a subsidiary company of Changing Lives. We are a registered housing provider, established to provide affordable quality homes for people in housing need. We provide homes for people who might otherwise struggle to access private rented or social housing tenancies due to a lack of availability or affordability.

As a landlord, we are able to improve living conditions for people facing challenging circumstances, by offering a secure long-term tenancy as well as providing a quality home. Our properties are let at below market rent, to provide truly affordable homes to people that need them.

TCUK Homes is an ethical landlord and accommodation provider. Like our parent organisation, Changing Lives, we’re passionate about helping people achieve their goals and personal potential.

Our vision is ‘to help people in financial hardship to access good quality affordable homes to rent and thereby help to relieve poverty’.

Our objectives are to:

1. Deliver an excellent housing service
2. Run an efficient business
3. Invest in our property portfolio
4. Relief of poverty in local communities

TCUK Homes purchases and refurbishes empty homes to provide affordable housing for local communities.

By bringing empty homes back to life, we improve the outlook for local neighbourhoods, with fully refurbished and occupied homes replacing neglected, vandalised and abandoned properties. We work in partnership with agencies such as the Homes England and local councils to make best use of the existing housing stock in their areas. We have a Community Standard which means we aim to keep the neighbourhood and any communal areas clean and tidy. We also work in partnership with local councils and the police to tackle and prevent anti-social behaviour.

The Assessment Process

When you apply for a TCUK Home, you will meet with one of our team who will be able to assess your readiness for independent living and to understand your financial status. During this meeting we will provide you with information on our housing management and repairs services and discuss the weekly rent and the payment options available.

We try to match household size against property size to avoid those tenants in receipt of housing benefit / universal credit from additional housing costs such as Under Occupancy (bedroom tax), although the demand for one bedroom properties generally exceeds the number of vacancies.

If we are able to consider you for a specific vacancy, we will generally seek references from previous landlords.

We work closely with support agencies and local authorities and notify them of forthcoming vacant properties on a regular basis. Referrals from agencies and local authorities lead to the majority of prospective tenants for our properties, although we do accept direct applications as long as you meet our criteria.

Support

Our homes are for people who are ready to live independently. However, we want to make sure that people have support to make the best start to their tenancy. We allocate each resident a Housing Officer, who visits six weeks into the tenancy and every six months afterward, to resolve any issues.

When you apply to TCUK Homes, if we think that you will not be able to sustain your tenancy, we will have to put your application on hold. For example, if someone is dependent on drugs or alcohol, we may delay offering a tenancy until you have worked with other Changing Lives services and are in recovery.

Contact our Housing Manager Olivia on 07802 884108 who will explain your options to you.