Help with your tenancy

Help with your tenancy

If you're struggling to manage your home, money, or tenancy we have teams that can help you.

Housing Plus

Our Housing Plus team are here to help you successfully manage and sustain your tenancy. We are here to guide you to look after your home and ensure the best possible outcome for you.

We want to help you stay in your home and the Housing Plus team can:

· Make a plan to help with rent arrears, set up repayments and refer you to Tenancy Sustainment (more information below)

· Advise and guide you on how to look after your property to keep it clean, heating and airing it, disposing of rubbish and recycling correctly.

· Identify and helping you to gain support to deal with any hoarding issues.

· Help you make and keep repair appointments and compliance checks so your property is safe and free from hazards.

· Help you maintain good relationships with your neighbours

· Set you achievable goals and targets to put you on track to maintain your tenancy

· Signpost you to agencies that can help with debt management, mental health, well-being and housing support. You can access the service by contacting us and a Housing Plus Officer will visit you in your home, give you more information about the service and complete an assessment with you based on your needs.

There is a weekly charge for this service which may be covered by welfare benefits and can be added to your rent account.

For more information please read our Housing Plus leaflet [pdf document].

The Tenancy Sustainment team are based in our Housing Income Management team and can provide additional help and support to Darlington Borough Council tenants around their finances.

This is a free service to Council tenants, and they can support you at any point in your tenancy. They can help you with:

• Managing rent payments
• Welfare benefits
• Universal Credit and housing benefit
• Applications to help with water charges through Northumbrian Water
• Discretionary housing payment applications
• Better budgeting and managing your money
• Saving money on bills such as gas, electricity and home phone
• Bank and credit union accounts
• Loan sharks

For more information see our Tenancy Sustainment leaflet [pdf document].