The Social Housing Fuel Support fund is a new £2 million fuel poverty fund to help social landlords support their tenants who are struggling with fuel costs during the coronavirus pandemic.
Funded by the Scottish Government, and managed and administered by the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA). It aims to provide practical support to social landlords’ tenants in order to help them to manage or reduce their energy costs.
Essentially, social landlords like us are asked to purchase fuel vouchers to give to tenants to help with energy costs.
The Association has recently secured funding via this fund to assist each of our 742 tenants with their energy costs.
Each of our tenants will have £170 paid direct to their energy provider via the fuel voucher scheme. PLEASE NOTE THAT NO CASH SUMS ARE AVAILABLE
It doesn’t matter if you have a key meter, card meter or pay by quarterly/monthly direct debit.
We have partnered with the Home Energy Action Team (HEAT), who are part of the Wise Group, to administer the funds and pay them to your energy provider
The process for obtaining your funds will be done via a referral form from us to HEAT and we will be in touch with each tenant in due course to progress this
Once HEAT have received your referral, they will contact you to discuss getting the payment to your energy provider
HEAT will follow strict protocols to identify themselves to our tenants so you can be assured that you are speaking with an approved advisor
Full details will be sent to you in a letter over the coming weeks advising exactly when we will be in touch with you to go through the referral process
Please bear with us as we work through all referrals in an estate-by-estate basis – the funding is safe and will be paid to all tenants but we need to ensure that we carry out the referrals as well as continuing to provide our other day to day services
If you are feeling particularly vulnerable in respect of paying your fuel costs at present and require an urgent referral, please contact us direct and we will prioritise this.
HEAT will also provide extra assistance to each tenant to in the form of:
- Advice and support to make behavioural changes that save money, such as efficient use of electrical appliances, central heating systems
- Financial advice to help customers set realistic budgets, repay an outstanding balance at a realistic rate
- Access to eligible energy industry schemes such as Warm Home Discount, Priority Services Register, Hardship Funding
- Impartial and independent assistance to switch supplier or tariff
We are delighted to be able to offer this to our tenants on an equal and fair basis