To solve typical day to day housing problems you do not need a high level of theoretical or academic knowledge in housing, nor do you require experience of working in social housing. To effectively illustrate the transferable skills and competencies required for front line social housing management roles, consider the following typical scenarios:

Rent Arrears
“I have just lost my job and applied for housing benefit. I can’t afford to pay the full rent this month. What can I do to avoid legal action and being evicted?”

Anti Social Behaviour
“Mrs Campbell has no control over her son. He and his friends are always congregating in the front entrance and within the communal hallway to the block of flats, looking intimidating and often smoking drugs - and his mother simply does nothing about it.”

Lifestyle Clash
“My neighbour has strong smelling foods coming from her flat everyday. The smells are overpowering and are just too much for me!”

Maintenance
“My heating and hot water has broken down and I have 2 children who are under 5.”

Estate Management “The chair of the residents association has made a complaint about the cleaning and gardening on the estate. There are dumped fridges and sofas which have taken 2 months to collect, and which have attracted more dumped rubbish, the grass is overgrown, and the lifts constantly smell of urine.”

Tenancy Management
“My neighbour is a young Asian man, but recently I haven’t seen him around. Instead I’ve seen a Brazilian flag go up on the kitchen window and about 5 or 6 people regularly coming and going through the day and night, and it’s only a one bedroom flat.”

Vulnerable Client
“An old age pensioner has come into the housing office after loosing her keys. She is distraught and wants to get back into her flat.”

Voids and Lettings
“I am on the homeless register and I viewed a new property yesterday, but I didn’t like the open plan kitchen and living room. Can I be offered another property?”

• The problems listed above represent a range of common, and often universal day to day housing problems, which require a strong common sense approach, coupled with strong communication skills, and well rounded “knowledge” of housing issues on an operational basis – all of which is precisely focussed and imparted on the GT course