How to be a good lockdown neighbour

UNISON member Lynn Gillespie works for a housing association in Coventry as a Safer Neighbourhoods Officer. Her job involves responding to tenant complaints about anti-social behaviour and she organises injunctions and possessions. Lynn is on the frontline of housing, and the job isn’t always easy. “Anti-social behaviour is behaviour that affects a community, like drug dealing, noise nuisance, or racial harassment,” says Lynn. “We have various means of tackling it, and some of those tools include legal procedures.” Lynn responds to tenants’ complaints about their neighbours. Her role has become suddenly even more important at a time when people are spending prolonged periods of time in their homes and can’t do anything to escape neighbours who behave antisocially. But when the government announced a suspension of evictions and possessions, Lynn was worried she wouldn’t be able to do her job. “At first we were told that evictions would still happen,” she says. “Then Boris announced the legislation that all evictions were cancelled, including rental and anti-social behaviour evictions.” Against all odds, Lynn’s team became one of the first housing associations in the country to obtain injunctions under lockdown. “We had a couple of serious cases where two tenants were letting drug dealers and working girls into the blocks – putting social distancing and other residents at risk. “The people who were being allowed in were causin...
Source: UNISON Health care news - Category: UK Health Authors: Tags: Article Communities in Unison community housing housing associations Source Type: news