OAP blasts sheltered housing shake-up
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RESIDENTS at Tom Matheson Court in Thurso feel they have been let down by their housing association after it reclassed its sheltered housing accommodation as amenity housing.
Sheila McCracken and her neighbours claim Cairn Housing Association, which runs the complex, is not making its residents its most important priority.
The housing scheme has been without a warden, otherwise known as a sheltered housing service manager, for three years.
Up until 2009 residents would pay a monthly supporting people charge to fund this position.
When the manager retired, each of the flats had an emergency cord installed, which were also recently replaced, with each resident given a pendant to press to connect them to the community alarm service run by Highland Council.
Mrs McCracken (77) said empty flats at Tom Matheson Court were rented out to people over 50 who wanted to downgrade to one-bedroom properties and they were given incentives of up to £1000 to move.
She feels badly let down and claimed the money from the care service she used to pay for was used to help subsidise people to downgrade their properties.
"I have not signed anything that I wanted amenity housing – if we haven’t signed this, how can they change the status?
"I estimate that I have paid £6000 for the monthly care service since I’ve lived here but we did stop paying the charge in 2009.
"There were a number of flats that were lying empty and I believe that Cairn Housing Association wanted to fill them up with people who had two or three bedroom houses and pay them to move in here.
"The flats all went quite quickly and I feel my neighbours and I who lived here when it was still sheltered housing helped subsidise their move.
"I feel they have spent our money that would have been better spent on looking after their residents."
Cairn Housing Association recently rebranded its sheltered housing complex at Caberfeidh Court in Wick as retirement housing, aiming it at the over-50s market – people who currently live in housing association properties of two or more bedrooms who want to downgrade to single-bedroom flats.
Director of business services Rory Gaffney said the Scottish housing association sector is facing significant challenges and in its efforts to provide a modern, efficient service to tenants, Cairn made a decision to reorganise its staffing structure in Caithness in 2009.
"All affected tenants and staff were fully consulted on these proposals and this process was completed in July and August 2009, with the changes being implemented from January 5, 2010," he said.
"The new structure reduced the number of staff from four to three and resulted in the employment of two local services assistants, based at Tom Matheson Court and Caberfeidh Court, and a housing officer.
"The local services assistants provided both a housing support service for tenants and a housing management service for all our tenants in Caithness.
"When we re-designated these properties, we advised tenants that we would no longer be able to deliver the housing support service but we could arrange for anyone who felt they would like to continue to receive this to be assessed for services which would be provided by the Highland Council through the community alarm service.
"This meant that tenants would no longer be required to pay the supporting people charge."
Mr Gaffney said the payments of £1000 made to new tenants relate to a downsizing policy which was agreed by Highland housing register partners and was used as incentives for people to move from larger family homes into smaller properties.
"This helped address housing demand for families and helped people who were willing to move to a smaller property with removal costs.
"The money paid by tenants at Tom Matheson Court to Cairn Housing Association is payment for rent and service charge.
"The costs relating to the local services assistants were removed from the service charge in 2009 when local services assistants were employed to deliver the housing management service to all of our tenants in Caithness."
