We can’t do everything for everyone - and we don't need to
Through the ongoing work of our Learning Partners, Animate, we interviewed Michael and Stewart who are housing officers working for Dundee City Council. They told us about their experience of working with two local women living in Charleston.
Tasha and Nicole are both single mums living in Charleston. They have been involved in their community since they were teenagers but over the past two years, they have become very active, as part of Charleston Matters and the Lochee Takeover running family fun sessions, gala days, distributing small grants and constantly coming with new ideas to improve the area.
A couple of months ago they ran into Greg Colgan Chief Executive of Dundee City Council in a community centre. They told him that they wanted to improve the look of the area. He put them in touch with the housing team and two local officers met up with them.
Since then, they have been supporting Michael to run the drop in every Tuesday at the Charleston Matters group. When Tasha and Nicole are present and advertise the drop in on their social media 7-8 people come – without them it is only 1 or 2. Tenants get a chance to talk about their individual problems, and the housing officer does what he can to address them.
Sheltered housing (and other agencies) have now been invited to the drop in. And Tasha and Nicole want to bring young people to the sheltered complex to meet the residents and play games.
Once you have got that you have got that connection
Michael is fully aware of what a difference it makes to work with Tasha and Nicole:
The girls in Charleston have facilitated us meeting the community… they are very well known and well respected. They have the vision and the drive - they have new things in their head all the time.
And they wanted to do something which would benefit the whole community. Together they selected a couple of streets for a walkabout which will happen in December. Michael is inviting a range of people from the Council including environment, close painting and leisure. But ‘blitzing it’ will be done by people on the community payback scheme which benefits them and cuts through a two year waiting time for council workers.
We knew that we had to get the girls to lead it. We are starting with two streets and then we will grow it. We can’t build houses, but we could look at a cycle path or a bike shed, dog bins in back gardens and we can tidy up areas. Once we have been in and delivered what they want, the community can take ownership of keeping it the way we have left.
We can take a step back. We will help and facilitate them in achieving what they want to achieve for Charleston. They will meet with our supervisors and local officers for that area from different departments – it will be the start of a new relationship with our colleagues – they will identify any issues and be in touch when they need to.This could be a massive step moving forward. There is an area across from the community centre and people used to leave it in a mess – one of the women went over to them and said why are you leaving it in a mess and they said oh right fair enough – because it is their neighbours they have a much bigger impact.
Michael says the potential is ‘incredible’:
We are trying to redesign the service to make it more personal again. it is about doing it a whole different way – it is a mini-restructure in our department. They are not demanding they are allowing us to facilitate them in what they want to achieve.
We are motivated by them (Tasha and Nicole). . We see a lot of negativity on a daily basis. They don’t know what difference they are making to us – they are changing our jobs and our roles. I think it has got the potential to totally change how we work.
And he can see that it will change people’s view of the Council:
They will be speaking to the locals saying stop moaning about the Council – look what they are doing. Our resources are stretched. If we can bring Charleston up to date there won’t be a backlog. There are volunteers who want to go out and about doing litter picks and maintenance – we can get them equipment and supervisor the volunteers which lightens our load and we can concentrate on other things.
It will work or fail because of the girls. We have had drop ins before – but it only works with the involvement of those girls. They encourage others to come and talk to us.
It used to be all about what we want… now that seems bizarre… it was almost like we knew better… now that we have turned that we look back and think who did we think we were…
Michael says the potential is ‘incredible’:
For instance, there was an elderly old woman had to move out of her family home, she had never lived on her own before. She had to move into an undecorated home in Charleston. The girls said they would decorate for them – if we give them the B and Q card.
It would be possible to get them, and other members of the community involved through Charleston Matters, a registered community group, so that they can be volunteers and take part in health and safety training.
We are getting community spirit back…the knock-on effect from this means that we can help more people and change lives.
Tasha herself is equally enthusiastic:
I am absolutely buzzing about how amazing the housing work is going.