CHAP / DiGS - Professionals

The Community Housing Advocacy Project (CHAP) has been responsible for the management of the Rent Deposit Guarantee Scheme (DiGS) on behalf of East Ayrshire Council since June 2005. During this period, the organisation has committed itself to the effective running and development of the scheme and has strived to attain continuous improvement and acheive targets.
	DiGS provides a "deposit guarantee" to assist people over 25 (or under 25 with dependant children) on benefits or low income and who are homeless (or are at risk of homelessness) and unable to secure a tenancy through normal housing channels, to find sustainable accommodation in the private rented sector.
This benefits local authorities as it enables them to offer another housing alternative to alleviate the shortage of temporary accommodation and social housing stock. It also is a cost effective way to meet homeless targets set by the government as the cost of housing a service user through a rent deposit scheme is much less than a preson presenting as homeless with a local authority.
	The service user also benfits as it is able to offer them a choice in housing options and specific areas available. It also benefits landlords in numerous ways, i.e: reduced or no advertising costs. The Service Co-ordinator liaises with landlords, interviews service users and assesses support needs of individuals accessing the service. Home Support visits are carried out by staff to those placed through the scheme to ensure that they are caring for and sustaining the property.
Our person centred service incorporates support needs assessment and signposting service while staff and volunteers provide ongoing contact for those requesting assistance in order to sustain their tenancies, thus reducing the issue of repeat homelessness. Staff ensure all documentation is in place regarding the tenancy and housing benefit forms are submitted. Referrals are also made to other agencies to initiate the provision of training/education in basic life skills, budgeting and financial management for the service user, thus also being pro-active in preventing repeat homelessness.
	We (CHAP) continue to monitor our performance through on-going landlord and tenant evaluations as well as benchmarking with other Deposit Guarantee Schemes nationwide. As our philosophy is one of ongoing improvement, we continually monitor and self-evaluate our performance and remain extremely motivated in our efforts to maintain and improve upon current performance levels within all aspects of DiG and to implement, where necessary and appropriate, any actions we deem to be both beneficial with potential to improve the scheme.

The Community Housing Advocacy Project (CHAP) has been responsible for the management of the Rent Deposit Guarantee Scheme (DiGS) on behalf of East Ayrshire Council since June 2005. During this period, the organisation has committed itself to the effective running and development of the scheme and has strived to attain continuous improvement and acheive targets.

DiGS provides a "deposit guarantee" to assist people over 25 (or under 25 with dependant children) on benefits or low income and who are homeless (or are at risk of homelessness) and unable to secure a tenancy through normal housing channels, to find sustainable accommodation in the private rented sector.

This benefits local authorities as it enables them to offer another housing alternative to alleviate the shortage of temporary accommodation and social housing stock. It also is a cost effective way to meet homeless targets set by the government as the cost of housing a service user through a rent deposit scheme is much less than a preson presenting as homeless with a local authority.

The service user also benfits as it is able to offer them a choice in housing options and specific areas available. It also benefits landlords in numerous ways, i.e: reduced or no advertising costs. The Service Co-ordinator liaises with landlords, interviews service users and assesses support needs of individuals accessing the service. Home Support visits are carried out by staff to those placed through the scheme to ensure that they are caring for and sustaining the property.

Our person centred service incorporates support needs assessment and signposting service while staff and volunteers provide ongoing contact for those requesting assistance in order to sustain their tenancies, thus reducing the issue of repeat homelessness. Staff ensure all documentation is in place regarding the tenancy and housing benefit forms are submitted. Referrals are also made to other agencies to initiate the provision of training/education in basic life skills, budgeting and financial management for the service user, thus also being pro-active in preventing repeat homelessness.

We (CHAP) continue to monitor our performance through on-going landlord and tenant evaluations as well as benchmarking with other Deposit Guarantee Schemes nationwide. As our philosophy is one of ongoing improvement, we continually monitor and self-evaluate our performance and remain extremely motivated in our efforts to maintain and improve upon current performance levels within all aspects of DiG and to implement, where necessary and appropriate, any actions we deem to be both beneficial with potential to improve the scheme.