Housing Options Membership

Housing Options Membership is for housing or support agencies, voluntary organisations and local health and social service authorities.

Housing Options Advisory Service has a core of member organisations who both support and benefit from the work of the service.

Our advisory service is primarily for families but also works with service users and professionals. It was set up to promote ideas for living which go beyond residential care options to other forms of supported housing, renting, low cost home ownership and use of family investment or property. It is a charitable company, formed in 1996 in order to provide entirely independent advice to disabled people, carers and relatives and professionals.

What it offers is good quality information and advice which it's hard to find elsewhere: on housing, funding, the law and on planning for life. Besides this we have a good network of relations with the Department of Health, the Valuing People Support Team, the Housing Corporation, National Housing Federation, housing associations and support providers.

Housing Options is funded in three ways:

• Subscriptions from members organisations
• Department of Health grant and occasional charitable grants and donations
• Fee income from workshops, publications and similar sources

Housing Options provides mostly free services to families and people with learning disabilities through:

• Telephone advice on housing, support, legal, benefits, and funding
• Advice by letter or email
• A well used and regarded web-site
• A wide range of downloadable Quick Briefs and Factsheets

There is a scale of fee charges for sessional work from our advisors

• Local training events and workshops for staff or family carers
• Individual Housing Option Plans and other face to face consultations

The original reason the founding organisations became members was simply a belief that it was right that disabled people should be able to get impartial, well informed advice. This understanding is fundamental to the support for the service as a charity. As the service has grown it has evolved so members now get additional direct benefits. There is a core Executive meeting quarterly to help run the business and two wider member meetings a year which provide opportunity to learn from special presentations or briefings, discuss policy and practice issues, guide the work of the service and share experience and ideas.

The benefits of membership are

• Being part of a national forum of leading specialist organisations.
• Two annual awaydays a year on housing and support policy and practice and other one off events
• Two learning sets Finding Housing Solutions each year for those in special housing posts for people with learning disabilities
• Members have direct access to Housing Options Advisors
• Help with queries on finding housing, on trusts, tenancy, ownership, benefits and rights
• Free copies of Housing Options publications and annual updates on CD.
• Access to briefings on national policy
• Your choice of a half-day, special workshop/training event at no charge
• As part of a consortium managing Housing Options, members can develop their own organisational expertise and contacts
• Free Resource Pack - video, photocards and Your Place to Live manual plus other current publication in hard copy
• Access to the Housing Options Members Area website

Housing Options asks each larger member organisation to contribute £2,500 per year. I hope joining us will appeal to you. The quality of the membership is important for the development of the organisation and we hope in the same way that our shared expertise and network can be seen to be of value to your authority.

If you would like to know more, contact our office and if you wish one of our senior advisors would be happy to meet to discuss or answer your questions.

Housing Options, Stanelaw House, Sutton Lane, Sutton, Witney, Oxfordshire, OX29 5RY, United Kingdom
Telephone: +44 (0)845 4561497 E-mail: enquiries@housingoptions.org.uk