Dear Customer of Greatwell Homes,
I wanted to write to you in these strange times to assure you that Greatwell Homes has the well being of you, your family and our staff at the forefront of our thinking and decision making.
I am sure like you all do, I go to bed thinking about Coronavirus and the impact on me, my family and friends, my work, my work colleagues, our customers and the long term impact on society… and I wake up thinking about the same thing.
But, at the same time I am uplifted by all the great stories of people and communities coming together to help and support each other and I am extremely proud of everyone at Greatwell Homes who has embraced that spirit.
I wanted to tell you some of the things we have been doing at Greatwell Homes to keep you and our staff safe and provide as much assurance as possible as we plan for the future weeks to come.
- I know that sadly many of you will be facing financial uncertainty and as a result we have decided that we will not take any legal action at the current time if you are in arrears. We may (in some cases) serve a notice to protect Greatwell Homes in the future but if we decide to do this it will be discussed fully with you and no follow up legal action will be taken. I hope this gives you some comfort in these difficult times.
- We will continue to keep your homes safe by making sure we undertake emergency repairs. I am sure you understand that in order to minimise any risk to our front line staff these are the only repairs we will be doing for now.
- We will keep letting as many empty properties as we can to ensure as many people as possible have a safe place to live.
As you can imagine we are trying to minimise as much person to person contact as we can, but we do have some fantastic front line staff still doing what they can to keep you as safe. A special mention must go to the cleaners in our independent living schemes, Greatwell Works for undertaking emergency repairs and working in our empty homes and Greatwell Places for keeping the grounds maintenance service going for as long as possible.
The rest of our team are working from home – but due to the investments we have made in technology, the good news is you can still contact us by ringing 01933 234450 or emailing us on customer.services@greatwellhomes.org.uk
We are also in contact with local voluntary organisations to understand better how we can support them and in turn they can support you in these difficult times.
As you know the situation changes daily so we have a special team called the Incident Management Team and they meet (virtually) on a regular basis to discuss next stages.
Please be assured that in every single discussion and every decision I and the team make, the health, safety and well being of you, your family and our staff is always, always the top priority. This is a time more than ever to put people first.
None of us know what the next weeks will bring but we do know that we can all do our best to minimise the impact of it by being good citizens and following Government advice.
It maybe that as the situation evolves we have to change our approach. You can keep up to date with the latest position by logging onto our website www.greatwellhomes.org.uk, following us on twitter @greatwellhomes or https://www.facebook.com/greatwellhomes/
I genuinely hope from the bottom of my heart that you and your families are all doing ok?
I know for some of you the challenging times ahead will be harder than for others. I hope you are managing to find some light-hearted moments that make you smile, and I hope that you are looking after your physical health and mental well being.
I appreciate and thank you all for your flexibility, support and resilience in these unprecedented times.
Take care all
Jo (Chief Executive)