Who we house

Shepherds Bush Housing Association (SBHA) provides housing for people in housing need, both to existing tenants transferring homes and to new tenants moving into an SBHA home for the first time.

Every year we work out how many properties we expect to let, and produce a lettings plan detailing how many will be offered to the different housing groups, which are:

• nominations from local authorities
• reciprocal agreements with partner local authorities
• tenants in supported housing schemes 'moving on' to permanent accommodation
• transferring tenants
• tenants being decanted for urgent works
• returning decanted tenants
• split tenancies - where a single household requiring a transfer is rehoused in two smaller units of accommodation or where an adult member of the family has a child and a move for them would alleviate overcrowding for the larger family group
• underoccupiers - tenants 'trading down' from larger to smaller accommodation
• lettings to properties vacated by tenants buying their own home through Low Cost Home Ownership schemes
• nominations through the HOMES scheme (Housing Organisations' Mobility and Exchange Services)
• we also make properties requiring substantial improvement works available to shortlife tenants for small periods of time.

How we decide which properties are allocated to which groups
Tenants on our transfer list can bid for properties through the Locata choice based letting scheme, see the separate page on Transfers in the Tenant's Handbook area.

Decisions on allocations are made by the Allocations team in line with the targets set in SBHA's Annual Allocations and Lettings plan and nomination agreements with Local Authorities.

The Allocations section has to balance the needs of the various groups and uses a computerised system to make the allocations. A copy of our allocations policy is available for inspection at either of our offices.

We continuously monitor the allocations that we make and report the results to the Housing Operations Sub Committee every quarter. Every offer of accommodation made is checked by at least two members of staff to check the Allocations policy is being followed for every letting we carry out.

For more information on this subject or to see a copy of the full allocations policy, see the Transfers page in the Tenant's Handbook area, or contact Customer Services at our registered office on 020 8222 7300.