FCHA & Keep Wales Tidy Garden Project

Keep Wales Tidy run the 'Local Places for Nature' initiative that offers a range of free garden packages with the intention to reverse nature's decline and boost well-being throughout communities in Wales.

First Choice were awarded some of these garden packages, allowing improvements to the garden space for tenants and giving nature a home. All tenants were involved in participating or supervising First Choice staff and tenants' support staff with planting various herbs and wildflowers in their gardens to create a small wildlife friendly garden filled with a variety of habitats for pollinators to thrive.

Keep Wales Tidy supplied us with fruit and herb garden packages for 2 properties in Neath and Cardiff. Keep Wales Tidy also provided the tools and equipment for us to be able to develop the gardens with ease. Included in a fruit and herb garden package:

Five fruit trees Ten soft fruit bushes Ten herb and pollinator plants Fruit tree handbook Peat-free compost Gloves Hand tools (fork, spade, secateurs, trowel) Wildflower seed containing 24-nectar rich UK native species

Lynette, who's garden has been mentioned in previous blogs, was incredibly excited to get involved. She helped dig holes and plant the produce in the her garden and is looking forward to seeing what comes out of the garden in Neath.

Kathryn, the Project Officer for Keep Wales Tidy in Neath and Jessie, the "Local Places for Nature" Coordinator attended as well, overseeing how the garden was being developed and provided essential information to the tenants on how to properly use the tools, soil and plants that were provided to give them the knowledge to get the best out of their garden!

We would like to thank Keep Wales Tidy (especially Kathryn and Jessie), support staff and First Choice tenants for helping us give nature a home at our properties, increase biodiversity, and improve wellbeing for tenants and their support networks.

We have 2 more projects in Neath and Powys as well as trees being delivered to all 4 of the properties in the next few weeks as well!

Garden Project Slideshow

Tenants Talks Autumn 21

This autumn, we completed our first set of Tenants Talks since November 2019! We were so happy to be back engaging with our tenants face to face again. Housing Management staff Nigel, David, Eve, Donna and Mo visited a total of 58 tenants in Cardiff, Wrexham and Newtown to catch up about life after lockdown, Health and Wellbeing and many other topics…..

Lockdown Lives

Most of the tenants were upset that they couldn’t see family, although some did mention that they missed the pub! Now that lockdown restrictions have eased, many of them are back to seeing family and friends and having a nice drink.

A lot of the tenants found that they were walking around more, painting, reading and gardening. Many of our tenants have also started to connect with others online, with many of them receiving new tablets and laptops thanks to the hard work of Dave and Digital Communities Wales who were providing equipment to help people become more included.

Health & Wellbeing

Eve, our new Health & Wellbeing Coordinator attended the Cardiff Tenants Talk and introduced some health and wellbeing topics that were beneficial for the tenants.

All tenants completed a Health and Wellbeing survey about how they like to spend their time, what they like to eat and other lifestyle questions. Their answers will help First Choice gain an insight into how we can help improve tenants' wellbeing in mind and body.

Future tenant events

Housing Management have been hard at work organising and planning further tenant events that were introduced to the tenants. Some of these events include bowling, discos, and more tenant talks.

We also opened the floor to suggestions from the tenants about what kind of event they would like to see in their area in the future. These included a bonfire party, the Elvis festival, beach parties, zoo trips, extra discos, quizzes, walking and cookery lessons. Housing Management will look into organising some of these events in the future.

Raffle

In the past all of the raffles have included sweets and chocolates. This time, we introduced some healthier options such as pedometers and educated tenants on how to use the new equipment.

Gig Buddies Cymru

Dave and Nigel had the honour of introducing Gig Buddies to many of the tenants there for the first time. Gig Buddies Cymru is a befriending scheme that matches people with a learning disability in South Wales and North Wales with a volunteer who shares the same interests, so they can go to gigs and events together.

Tenants with First Choice can be a part of gig buddies so sharing that information with tenants will hopefully allow them to go out to events that they may not have felt comfortable going to before without a buddy.

Community Involvement Grant

We handed out grant forms that offered funding for community events, one off sporting events and other activities that benefit the community. This will allow First Choice to financially support some activities and events in the areas tenants live in.

Tenants’ Voice newsletter

Finally, we handed out previous newsletters and spoke to tenants about how they can get involved in contributing stories, hobbies and recipes to share with other First Choice tenants.

We were really pleased to hold our Tenants Talk meetings and see our tenants face to face again. We are so thankful for all of the tenants that attended and hope to see them back for the next events we hold along with some new faces.

Gallery

Transforming Former Church Land into Affordable Housing

New Consortium Teams Up with Housing Justice Cymru to Transform Former Church Land into Affordable Housing

FCHA is thrilled to share the news that it has joined forces with fellow South Wales housing associations to form a new consortium which will be working alongside Housing Justice Cymru to transform former church land into new affordable rented housing. The consortium is comprised of five housing associations operating across South Wales: Cardiff Community Housing, First Choice Hosing Association, Melin Homes, Newydd and Valleys to Coast.

For further information regarding the members of the consortium, please consult their websites:

- Cardiff Community Housing Association: www.ccha.org.uk

- Melin Homes: www.melinhomes.co.uk

- Newydd: www.newydd.co.uk

- Valleys to Coast: www.v2c.org.uk

The consortium has been successful in a tender process with Housing Justice Cymru to take forward the next stage of the organisation’s Faith in Affordable Housing project. This will see the consortium work alongside Housing Justice Cymru to transform disused and underused church land and assets across South-East Wales. To date, the Faith in Affordable Housing project has developed over 90 properties. By partnering with housing associations across Wales, the project will aim to develop over 1,000 homes nationwide in the next five years.

The new partnership will commence its work immediately, with a number of potential sites identified for consideration.

Gareth Davies, Development Director at Cardiff Community Housing Association and spokesperson for the consortium said: “We are delighted to be working with Housing Justice Cymru and believe that this new partnership will enable us to make a significant contribution of good quality, affordable homes in the South East region.”

News of this new partnership comes at a time when the call for more affordable housing across Wales has never been louder.

According to Welsh Government figures, up to 2025, it is estimated that there will be a need for a further 6,200-8,300 new affordable homes per year in Wales. Housing charity Shelter found that across Wales in 2020 there were over 67,000 households on housing waiting lists, illustrating the stark need for more affordable housing.

It is hoped that innovative and collaborative partnership working, as evidenced by the creation of this consortium and its involvement with the Faith in Affordable Housing project, will go some way to addressing this pressing need.

Housing Justice Cymru is a charity that mobilises church and other faith groups to respond to homelessness and housing need. The majority of this work has been through the provision of emergency night shelters. Over recent years the focus has shifted from the treatment of the problem to the prevention of homelessness through advice, support and critically the provision of more social rented housing. For the last three years they have run the Faith in Affordable Housing project supported by the Nationwide Foundation.

The Faith in Affordable Housing project has helped bring forward underutilised church and other assets to housing associations and local authorities. To date over 90 properties have been completed and there are a further 250 in the pipeline. The project has worked with over 28 different housing organisations across Wales and in 20 of the 22 local authority areas.

You can find out more about Housing Justice Cymru here: www.housingjustice.org.uk