What is housing management?
Housing management refers to the overseeing and maintenance of properties and accommodations within a community. Effective housing management aims to provide safe, comfortable, and well-maintained living spaces while also ensuring financial sustainability for property owners and managers.
Ensuring effective housing management involves a variety of tasks including property maintenance, tenant relations, rent collection, and housing compliance regulations. regulations.
With the demand for temporary and social housing rising, housing management also ensures that individuals and families get placed into safer and higher-quality accommodation that meets all their housing needs. However, due to challenges facing the housing market, including the high demand and shortage of available housing, housing management can be a lot more complex.
In the last year alone 1.1. million people have been added to social housing waiting lists and over 100,000 households have been placed into temporary accommodation. With budgets getting more stretched, being able to manage all housing needs effectively can become more and more of a struggle.
Housing management systems vs procurement providers vs Access Adam Housing – What’s the difference?
To manage the housing demand there are several different methods that local authorities have been using. Whether that is relying on manual processes and spreadsheets, housing management systems, procurement providers, or our Access Adam Housing solution, there are several different options.
Most local authorities have acknowledged that continuing to use multiple spreadsheets, and manual and paper processes is not sustainable. Many are looking for alternative ways to manage cases to place individuals and families into safer temporary accommodation quicker.
What are housing management systems?
A housing management solution is a system or service designed to streamline and improve the management of temporary housing.
These solutions will often include features for property listing and booking, maintenance, billing, and reporting. Housing management systems are most commonly used by property owners, managers, and housing providers to streamline the process of placing individuals into temporary accommodation and maintaining it.
This type of housing solution works best when a co-production approach is used to improve communications between organisations and help reach demand quicker to ensure no one is at risk of being placed in poor or unsafe housing.
What are housing procurement providers?
A housing procurement provider also commonly known as a housing procurement service or agency, is an organisation that specialises in acquiring residential accommodation or properties on behalf of an individual or family.
Housing procurement providers in temporary housing specialise in sourcing and securing temporary accommodation for individuals and families and offer a range of services to make this process quicker such as negotiating with housing managers and landlords and managing the logistics of the stay.
When done correctly, they play a crucial role in simplifying the process of securing temporary housing and accommodating every different house need within the community.
What is Access Adam Housing?
Access Adam Housing is an example of an end-to-end solution that supports local authorities to manage and meet the housing needs of their community in one centralised place.
It is a housing contract management solution that goes one step further than a typical housing management solution by ensuring that all local authorities meet their statutory requirements by automating housing compliance.
Access Adam Housing focuses on reducing risks to offer 100% fully compliant housing to every family or individual who needs it. With Access Adam, housing teams within a local authority no longer need to chase providers and landlords as bidding processes are all completed within the system to offer providers and local authorities real-time updates on every case to deliver the temporary accommodation needed at a fraction of the time.
Housing management systems vs Housing procurement providers vs Access Adam Housing – Why are these solutions important to improve temporary housing?
Undoubtedly, as we are all probably aware there are several challenges local authorities are facing when providing safer and higher quality temporary accommodation.
The rising demand and limited budgets can make it extremely difficult for local authorities to be able to consistently provide high-quality temporary accommodation that meets every house need. This in turn, can lead to individuals being stuck in temporary accommodation for a lot longer than intended, being stuck in temporary accommodation that is low quality or does not meet their specific needs, as well as increase health and safety risks.
These housing solutions are important therefore as they help to overcome and address the different housing challenges local authorities are faced with including:
- Affordability
- Availability
- Quality
- Cost-of-living crisis and the increase in homelessness
Addressing these challenges is vital to ensure every housing need is met within your community. The different housing solutions available are important because they help to streamline the process of searching for and securing temporary accommodation for every individual in your community to make securing temporary housing more sustainable.
Housing management systems and Access Adam Housing in particular are also important as they help local authorities address the wider housing issue of homelessness to provide both immediate support and more preventative measures so individuals never have to seek temporary accommodation again. To find out more about making temporary housing more permanent download our housing guide today.
These solutions offer local authorities the opportunity to reduce their reliance on paper and manual processes, instead digitally transforming their service and facilitating consistent access to safe, suitable, and more manageable temporary accommodation.
When used correctly, all of these housing solutions enable a better co-production approach and ensure all local authorities can address challenges in providing temporary accommodation more effectively, quickly, and safely.
The list below summarises all the key reasons why these different housing solutions are important to improve temporary accommodation:
- Streamlines the process of securing temporary accommodation
- Less time-consuming for both local authorities and housing providers
- Offers more diverse options across the community
- Reduces the admin burden
- Provides expertise
- Mitigates risks
- Provides consistency
- Ensures compliance
- Provides better quality assurance
Housing management systems vs housing procurement providers vs Access Adam Housing – What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?
As discussed previously, when implemented correctly all of these different housing solutions can provide many benefits to improve temporary accommodation in your local community. However, it is not always that simple. To make investing both the time and money in these solutions successful your local authority needs to know the specific requirements of your community.
|
|
Housing Management Systems |
Housing Procurement Providers |
Access Adam Housing |
|
Pros |
|
|
|
|
Cons |
|
|
|
Housing management systems vs housing procurement providers vs Access Adam Housing – Pros and Cons of investing in digital solutions
All three housing solutions can offer better benefits and efficiencies to securing temporary housing when they have been digitally transformed by enabling better data-led decision-making. The benefit of these solutions digitally transforming processes also enables both housing management systems and Access Adam Housing to automate tasks. This, in turn, helps to make the process quicker to avoid long waiting lists and also be able to manage the demand better.
What makes Access Adam Housing more advanced in automating tasks is that all compliance checks are completed before the property is listed as available. This helps to save local authorities time and leaves them confident that no one will be placed in accommodation without the provider being fully assessed first.
Both housing management systems and Access Adam Housing help stop local authorities no longer chasing providers and landlords as the bidding process is managed within the system. Notifications are sent out automatically when any documentation is about to go out of date, allowing councils to see in real-time the providers available that are fully regulated.
Most housing procurement providers offer specialised expertise in the housing market in your area. Here procurement providers can be fully aware of the landlords who want to collaborate and help provide better quality temporary accommodation to tackle the homelessness cycle. At Access Adam, this knowledge is valuable to filter options so you only ever work with only 100% of compliant providers.
WREN Housing have over 8,500 safety certificates automatically checked across 2,300 different listings, to see first-hand the accommodation available that meets every case.
However, all of these solutions do have some disadvantages. Like all digital transformation journeys, there will always be integration challenges so it is important to be aware of how each solution can overcome them so there is minimal disruption.
It can be difficult to find a housing solution that specifically supports and addresses all the challenges of providing temporary housing. Equally, you want to use a solution that encourages a co-production approach so individuals and families don’t become so dependent on procurement providers.
Housing management systems vs Housing Procurement Providers VS Access Adam Housing – which housing solution is best for you?
This article has addressed the importance of delivering safer and high-quality temporary housing at a faster rate to keep up with demand and make the best use of the budget and resources local authorities have available.
I have addressed that many local authorities tend to rely on using multiple spreadsheets and manual processes to place individuals into temporary accommodation and the impacts of that.
Through highlighting the importance of digital transformations in providing temporary housing this article has defined the different housing solutions available, why they are important, the differences between them, and the pros and cons of each.
This article has shown all three are great options to improve the process of securing temporary accommodation. Housing procurement providers can offer more specialised knowledge of the market and can understand which landlords are best to work with depending on the community’s needs. Both housing management systems and Access Adam Housing automate tasks to make better data-led decisions, so local authorities only ever work with 100% compliant providers when they use Adam Housing.
For more information on how our Access Adam Housing Solution can help your local authority make budgets stretch further, save time, reach demand, and ultimately improve the quality of life in your community, discover our housing contract management solution today.
Contact us and see firsthand how we can ensure you only ever work with 100% fully compliant providers that adapt to meet every house and always keep you informed and never put any resident at risk.