Service User Engagement

Tenants Advocacy Service Evaluation

Our Tenants Advocacy Service was borne out of Covid 19. Whist there was a pause on evictions, we created a project to provide holistic support and specialist housing and welfare advice to  support private rented tenants on low incomes to avoid homelessness.

Initially funded by the Greater Manchester Mayoral Fund and Lottery Community Fund, the project’s successes led to a  3 year  funding for the Henry Smith Charity. We commissioned an independent ‘Creative Listener’, Len Grant, to evaluate the project, including giving a voice to service users, staff, landlords and referral agents as well as some unique sketches! Find out what people have to say about the current housing crisis and how the TAS service helped on the link below.

Ongoing service user consultation and feedback

The Bond Board is committed to encouraging, supporting and developing opportunities for our service users and volunteers to have their voices heard. We value their lived experiences and believe their views on what will make a difference to their lives should be used to inform the design, development and evaluation of services. We continually seek to provide opportunities for service users to share their experiences about using our services and their ideas for future services. As a result, we know that social isolation, along with the cost of living crisis, including the costs of rent, fuel and food are currently the main concerns for our service users. As such, we are seeking opportunities to address these issues with applications for funding for new projects in the coming months.

Creative story telling project

Against the backdrop of the cost of living/housing crisis, and immigration protests on our streets, we are currently delivering a co-produced, creative story telling project that goes behind the headlines of division in Greater Manchester. We want the powerful stories of the diverse range of people experiencing the cost-of-living crisis within our homeless/vulnerably housed communities, and those who support them, to be heard. We will be supporting our service user volunteers to co-design and deliver the project, recruiting story telling artists and an embedded researcher to capture learning. The project will run from April-December 26, engaging at least 200 people including homeless/vulnerably housed people on low incomes, volunteers, staff, landlords and partner agencies. It will include reaching a group of emerging service users who are Refugees from all over the world. We want to better understand their challenges in the current political and economic climate and foster increased understanding and empathy between different groups.