ARCH AND TENANT INVOLVEMENT

ARCH is keen to reflect the views of people who live in council homes in its internal decision-making and its external lobbying.

The association recruited Marlene Price, who lives in the London Borough of Wandsworth, as resident representative on its board when it was first established and she now chairs the tenants’ sub-group.

The ARCH tenants’ sub-group is a regional network of tenant representatives from ARCH member authorities across England. The sub-group held its inaugural meeting in November 2008 and its quarterly meetings since have been well attended.

The Tenant Participation Advisory Service (TPAS) was commissioned to work with Mrs Price to finalise the group’s terms of reference and agree priorities for future activities and recruit members. The sub-group has fed its views into the national review of housing finance, Tenant Services Authority proposals and other key issues affecting the sector. It shaped the contents of the last two ARCH annual tenants’ and residents’ conferences and was highly instrumentally in organising the successful 2010 event in Birmingham.

The ARCH tenants’ sub-group is a sub-group of the ARCH executive board, which comprises local authorities elected at the association’s AGM (see the 'about ARCH' page on this site for details). As both resident representative on the ARCH executive board and chair of the sub-group, Mrs Price acts as a liaison point between the two. Executive board minutes and sub-group minutes are shared between the two entities via the members’ only area on the association’s website, to which sub-group members have access. Residents have been recruited from across England to ensure the ARCH tenants’ group fully reflects ARCH’s regional structure.

Profile: Marlene Price – sub-group chair

Marlene Price, resident representative on the ARCH executive board, who chairs the tenants’ sub-group, worked hard to establish the group, develop its terms of reference and recruit a regionally representative group of members.

Mrs Price has lived on the York Road estate in Wandsworth since April 1982. She moved there after returning to the UK from her birthplace in Guyana, South America. She joined the residents association and was asked to take a more active role when it hit problems. She says her involvement in residents’ issues just ‘snowballed’ from there.

She is a mother of three grown up children and after the death of her husband and the children fleeing the nest, she became more active as she found it difficult to turn down requests from community groups. She is vice-chair of the Borough Residents’ Forum, represents housing on the Local Strategic Partnership on housing issues, chairs the Latchmere Safer Neighbourhood Team and the Latchmere ward panels as well as her roles in ARCH.

As a trustee and member of Battersea Crime Prevention Panel, she is acutely aware of the importance of good relations between housing agencies and the police. She is a trained ‘Appropriate Adult’, who supports vulnerable children and adults who are taken into Police custody.

Marlene is articulate, organised and passionate about the causes she supports. ‘I get immense satisfaction in helping people make sure they get what they are entitled to,’ she says. She believes that having an ‘analytical mind’ helps her to see the bigger picture in her community and advocacy work. ‘Having been trained in risk management, I do like policies and procedures to be followed correctly.’

She retired from a successful career at PricewaterhouseCoopers several years ago but has kept working on a part-time basis since. She is a Senior Customer Relations Executive at British Airways. She also manages a successful London-based American Football team, the London Olympians.

She has worked tirelessly for ARCH since it was set up in 2006. ‘I believe in everyone getting a fair deal as residents in stock retained properties were not receiving the same level of financial support as the other options. I have fought for that in my work with ARCH and I will continue to passionately advocate for that on behalf of one million people who live in council homes across England.’

Profile: Jennifer Holmes – vice chair

As vice-chair of the sub-group, Jennifer Holmes, a tenant of West Lancashire District Council, supports Marlene Price and deputises for her when required.

Jennifer brings a wealth of experience to this role. Following a professional career as a civil servant, she took early retirement due to ill health.  She says: ‘I became involved with community issues following my retirement because of my anger at how housing and the environment had a profound detrimental effect on the life expectancy of those living in my area. Since then I have worked actively in my community to address these imbalances.’

She is treasurer of her local Estate Management Board and Tenants and Residents Forum, a Member of the West Lancashire Local Strategic Partnership and a trustee of two charitable organisations. She is also member of the Tenants’ Panel for the Tenants Services Authority.

As well as working voluntarily in the community, Jennifer has her own business as a training consultant and a stress management/ life balance coach. She says: ‘When I got involved with matters concerning social housing I realised that my knowledge was sadly lacking. Luckily I was able to access professional training at Trafford Hall, the National Tenants Resource Centre and I am now an Ambassador for centre and one of its approved training professionals.’

She comments: ‘I have a passion to ensure that tenants of stock retained council housing are not left behind in housing matters and have a clear vision of how the services should be managed. I joined the ARCH tenants’ sub-group in the hope of bringing about change to ensure there is a much better finance system for councils to provide affordable homes in a sustainable way. In my role as vice-chair of the group, I try to use my skills to encourage others to acknowledge the benefits of stock retention in meeting wider local and national priorities and to argue for a better deal for tenants.

‘The next few years are going to be an enormous challenge for all those involved in social housing. It is now vitally important that we face the unknown, with the knowledge that we will work together to create a future for council housing which is fair to all.’