Joshua Parry, a student at the University of Bath and resident of Cardiff, reflects on what he learnt during the summer of 2012 which he spent on work experience with a number of housing organisations in Wales.
Before I started work experience, I had a stereotypical idea of a housing association.
Engineers build houses and housing associations collect rent. Wow, I was wrong. At the start of my university degree, I was quite perplexed about the direction in which my career should go. Determining what job function, role or company I should aspire to during my search for a summer internship seemed like a mammoth task.
Last summer’s opportunities within the housing sector were indispensable in giving me exposure to an entirely new work area and also in helping me work out a career path for post-university life. Like many in the housing sector, I chanced upon housing; in my case, after completing a study of who gets priority for social housing at university. I realised that the focus of the sector is on delivering the housing that people need, rather than being driven by a financial agenda.
I have learnt a great deal about how changes to housing benefits will lead to a radical transformation. I had first-hand experience of this whilst spending a week with Cardiff Council’s housing strategy team, observing a review of the council’s allocation policy and attending a meeting of the National Homelessness Network. The potential impact of reforms was made even more evident to me when volunteering as a tenant profiler at United Welsh Housing Association, where older people were anxious that, after living in a house they have made their own for a generation, they will be forced out.
It was a very worthwhile experience witnessing how housing associations listen to their tenants. Whilst at Hafod Housing Association, I saw high quality communication with residents – regular estate walkabouts and community focus teams gauging tenants’ opinions on how they could make use of the local bike trail. I also discovered that housing associations are major economic drivers in Wales, employing hundreds of their own tenants. Whilst working at Community Housing Cymru, I acted as a liaison between CHC and Cardiff Business School who were undertaking an economic impact study of housing associations in Wales. I organised and was the first point of contact for the economic impact questionnaire sent out to housing associations so got a first hand view of the results.
Housing is a forgotten second cousin to health and education. However, a warm and secure home is a prerequisite to better health and better care. The housing minister Huw Lewis endorsed this in his Housing White Paper A White Paper for Better Lives and Communities. I spent a week shadowing the Minister, listening to his speech at a Care and Repair Cymru Conference and briefing his special advisors on the progress of the Housing White Paper and witnessing excitement about the legislation.
Composing a response to the White Paper on behalf of Llamau, I considered the ambitious nature of the proposals, the challenges that will be faced in delivery and
assessed the impact that the target to eradicate family homelessness by 2019 and to remove the intentionality ‘test’ for homeless children would have on the organisation. I also facilitated a focus group with young teenagers on the changes to homelessness set out in the White Paper.
My experience during the summer of 2012 certainly showed me that the housing sector is not dull – it is a living and breathing sector and a career within it is one which I will not find elsewhere.
Joshua Parry, jdfp20@hotmail.co.uk