We are committed to helping you to successfully manage your tenancy.
Our Independent Living service provides advice, support, and guidance for more complex and vulnerable households.
Sheltered housing
We provide sheltered housing for people aged 60 and above. You have the usual rights of a secure tenancy, but your home is not eligible for Right to Buy.
The accommodation is designed for independent living for older people, and many have shared communal lounges, laundry rooms, gardens, and courtyards. You will incur additional weekly charges for:
- Sheltered support.
- Communal upkeep and maintenance
- Care Alarm (Telecare) service
- District heating and hot water.
We will signpost you to external agencies who can provide additional support, for example, Age UK, Social Services, the Citizens Advice, Financial Inclusion Consortium, and other partners.
Specialist support team
We know that some tenants have multiple and complex needs, and this can increase the likelihood of difficulties with your tenancy. We help around 250 tenants, families, and individuals in this situation every year.
Our principal role is to support you in situations that make you more vulnerable. This helps to increase your ability to manage a healthy tenancy for the long term and reduce the risk of eviction and abandonment.
We aim to build your resilience, wellbeing, and ability to solve issues to bring about lasting change to help retain and manage your tenancy.
Referrals to this team are made by Norwich City Council staff.
Safe and Habitable Homes
We have a grant funded service called Safe and Habitable Homes working with St Martins to support mental health and hoarding casework.
Interact
We have a grant funded service called Interact help people whose wellbeing is suffering as a result of something linked to their housing circumstances. People eligible for the scheme are referred by an organisation or medical professional, via our website Healthy homes referral form www.norwich.gov.uk/healthyhomes The service is a partnership between Norwich City Council, Voluntary Norfolk, One Norwich Practices, Age UK Norwich and Norfolk Citizens Advice Bureau.
Budgeting and money advice service
We have a free and confidential team to help you if you fall into rent arrears and debt. We can help you to manage your weekly income and outgoings, to make sure your priority debts are paid.
Contact our Income Officers on 0344 980 3333, or email budgetingandmoneyadvice@norwich.gov.uk
You can fill in a referral form on our website: Housing, budgeting and money advice.
Home improvements and disabled adaptations
If you are disabled, we can help you and your family to improve your home and garden to make it easier to get around. This may include aids and adaptations such as grab rails, ramps, stair lifts or a walk-in shower. We work closely with you and an occupational therapist to find the most appropriate solutions for you and your home.
You can fill in a referral form on our website: Healthy homes referral form www.norwich.gov.uk/healthyhomes
Care alarm services
We provide an alarm service with 24-hours and year-round monitoring and response for anyone who feels unsafe or at risk in the community.
This independent service can be particularly useful for people who are elderly, disabled, or experiencing domestic abuse, racial harassment, or neighbourhood nuisance. Community Alarm Service
Domestic Abuse
Norwich City Council are committed to supporting survivors of domestic abuse and work in partnership with other organisations such as the Police and Norfolk Integrated Domestic Abuse Service (NIDAS). The council will look to increase survivors’ safety, housing security and hold perpetrators to account for their harm in accordance with our domestic abuse policy
Anti-social behaviour
We take anti-social behaviour seriously and recognise that, if allowed to persist, it can have a significant impact on your quality of life. Resolving anti-social behaviour requires a multi-agency approach. We work with statutory and voluntary sector agencies to problem solve and provide solutions.
Prevention is an essential part of our approach to dealing with antisocial behaviour. We will seek to develop support measures which prevent and deter the underlying causes of anti-social behaviour.
We will utilise support-based interventions to help you maintain your tenancy. If this is not successful or the perpetrators do not engage, we will use enforcement measures.
We want you to feel empowered to address anti-social behaviour, and there are tools available you can use:
- Further information is available on our website Antisocial behaviour (ASB)
- Dear Neighbour Cards - download letter templates on our website
- Mediation service – a confidential service to help resolve behaviour problems between tenants.
We take Hate Crime incidents seriously and work closely with the Police and other partners in relation to this criminal behaviour. A hate crime is one that constitutes a criminal offence and further information is available at Hate crimes and incidents
Nuisance
We are committed to developing and maintaining sustainable communities and expect a reasonable level of tolerance between neighbours. Complaints which are not a breach of tenancy like staring, pulling faces, malicious gossip, one-off parties, or social gatherings are not investigated as anti-social behaviour.
Health and safety checks
Occasionally, we will need access to your home to make sure that it is safe and habitable. We will write to you or phone you to tell you why we, or our contractors, need to visit and when. Most visits will be to carry out repairs, maintenance, or safety checks, this includes:
- Annual gas safety checks and remedial works
- Electrical safety checks and remedial works
- Smoke and alarms detector checks
- Leaks and water ingress (into parts of the building, or other flats).
If you do not respond to our requests to visit, we will issue a notice to seek entry and apply to the courts to gain access. This costs time and money, and we may have to recharge the costs to you. Alternatively, if it is an emergency then we will make reasonable endeavours to contact you to provide us with access, however we may force entry otherwise.
