Lettings Policy

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 23:46:47 -0700

Kingston Churches Housing Association (KCHA) is a locally based housing
association operating mainly in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames,
but with additional properties in Elmbridge Borough Council, Guildford
Borough Council and the London Borough of Merton.

We currently own and manage 246 units of housing. This is made up of a mix of general
needs housing (for single people, couples, single parents and families),
sheltered housing for the elderly, three student houses, and a shared house for
the young single homeless.

The distribution of our housing units by local authority area is as follows:
Kingston – 208 units Elmbridge – 15 units
Guildford – 16 units Merton – 7 units

We aim to provide affordable housing to rent for people in the greatest housing
need and least able to solve their own housing problems, working in partnership
with the local authorities in whose areas we operate.

We operate an Equality and Diversity Policy to ensure that our housing and
services are available to all who need them irrespective of: race, colour, ethnic
origin or nationality; gender; illness or disability, whether mental or physical;
religious, cultural or other beliefs; marital or family status; sexuality or sexual
preference; age, physical appearance or other characteristic.

In the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames (RBK) we are members of the
Kingston Housing Partnership, comprising the local authority and ten local
housing associations. These eleven organisations jointly operate the Kingston
Housing Register to make sure that everyone who applies for housing is
considered for all properties available. Full details of the scheme are available
on request.

Similar partnership arrangements operate in Elmbridge Borough Council (EBC)
and Guildford Borough Council (GBC).

For this reason, all of our general needs housing and most of our sheltered
housing for the elderly in these three areas is allocated through the common
housing registers, or occasionally to priority internal transfers. We do not
therefore maintain our own open waiting list.

In all three areas, however, we do have a small number of sheltered housing
units for the elderly that are more difficult to let because they comprise bedsits,
usually with shared facilities. It is not always possible to let these properties
through the common housing registers. We do maintain our own open waiting
lists for these properties, and further details and an application form are
available on request.

In the London Borough of Merton (LBM) our only housing scheme comprises a
shared house for seven young single homeless persons. Allocations to this
scheme are made through our partner organisation, Kingston Churches Action
on Homelessness (KCAH).

We also have two houses in RBK providing accommodation for 19 students.
These are mainly let through Kingston University although we also accept direct
applications from students attending other universities.

KCHA - Kingston Churches Housing Association - Lettings Policy

Lettings Policy