Volunteering for the Welsh Tenants
People coming together for mutual support in the form of tenant and resident groups and indeed federal structures have been around for decades with the history of the tenant movement stemming back to the sixties here in Wales.
Those early groups of tenants with support from community development supporters played a critical role in helping to shape community education, community development, local democracy and housing policy. This year, in the summer, the Welsh Tenants will have been constituted as a representative body for 25 years. It was in 1988 that a number of the tenant and resident associations came together as a national representative voice with the support of Shelter Cymru to realise that vision.
While the remit of the organisation may have been modified over time, the need for a national representative voice for tenants has not. Neither has the need for volunteers to play a key role in managing and shaping housing policy. Over the years we have played a key role in introducing smoke alarms, developing allocation and repair policies and charters that have helped to underpin a participatory role between tenant and landlord. This has never been more important in a post devolution Wales where tenants are able to shape decisions that impact on their lives and their communities.
The organisation still relies heavily on volunteers, whether their views are articulated through consultation responses or through direct active engagement with us. Tenant and resident groups in Wales undertake extensive volunteering roles in their communities equating to tens of thousands of voluntary hours each year, while on average people directly involved with the Welsh Tenants contribute nearly 9,000 voluntary hours annually. All of them undertake a critical role in helping to govern the organisation and contribute to the shaping of national, regional and local decisions made about housing policy and its delivery.
In recent years the organisation has extended opportunities to tenants via the Tenants Advisory Panel, providing a valuable role when helping to promote the regulatory framework for housing associations. Our plans for the future mean that we will see more tenants being needed to undertake this and other volunteering roles, be that formerly through Welsh Tenants’ structures or informally, and from different sectors. As we move forward, the need for self-help and mutual support will become increasingly important, as the pressures on communities become more acute through welfare reforms and other pressures that may undermine community cohesion and the partnerships that we have helped to develop.
We would welcome your support, be you council, housing association or private tenant, be you a housing student, a retired community development professional or a much loved mum or father helping in your community, we would be keen to hear from you.
Help us to help you to ensure that the principle of a national tenant voice can continue to strive for the next 25 years.
Please contact info@welshtenants.org.uk for further information. Membership and support is free, and so is our loyalty to you.