How Housing 21 uses Huggg for Support Vouchers

Housing 21 is a leading, not-for-profit provider of extra care and retirement living for older people of modest means. The organisation operates in 240 local authority areas, and manages over 22,800 properties, providing over 38,000 hours of social care each week. Their vision is to provide high quality housing with support or care to older people who need it most, whilst ensuring residents remain involved and empowered so the services provided meet their individual needs and preferences, now and in the future.

The Challenge of Distributing Support Funds Manually
As the cost-of-living crisis continued to spiral in the UK, Housing 21 wanted to keep pace with the support requirements that are received on a weekly basis from their residents. So in In April 2022, Housing 21 set up an internal "Helping Hands" scheme allowing residents to apply for a support grant to help with the cost-of-living increases. However, the way the scheme was administered was time consuming and laborious for the Strategic Operations Team, who were using credit cards to buy supermarket vouchers and then distributing them manually to applicants.

At the same time, the Strategic Operations Manager, Cressida, was hosting a Ukrainian family who received a text to their mobile phone from the Red Cross, which allowed them to withdraw £50 at certain cash machines.  It was a light bulb moment, as Cressida realised if Housing 21 could do the same with a simple code from Huggg, then it would make a big difference to the way they were distributing their support fund.

The Solution of Sending Voucher Codes
In 2022, the team started to work with Huggg, which streamlined the team’s approach, making a manual, laborious process, quick, easy and manageable.  Previously it was taking the team around an hour to work on each application (if not longer in some cases) but with the Huggg this reduced to around 10 minutes. With some months generating over 130 applications, the time saving has been transformational.

What's more, Housing 21 won the award for Most Innovative Financial Support Scheme at the Housing Digital Innovation Awards.

Nikki-Leigh Dipper, Strategic Operations Officer at Housing 21, said:

“As part of the Resident Engagement and Experience team I get to see first-hand what a difference these vouchers make to vulnerable older people in our communities.
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Working with the Huggg team has been fantastic. From our initial demo to the daily management of the platform, the team has been supportive and extremely responsive to any queries that we have. Having all the relevant information and application forms in one place has also simplified the process for our residents.

They understand that Huggg is our trusted partner and are happy to receive vouchers this way.  The platform has enabled us to simplify our internal processes, and with an increase in the number of applications this has been a lifeline for us.”

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Here's just some of the people who have benefited from the Helping Hands Support Fund

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Find out more about Huggg and how we can help you with getting out vouchers to those in need