What a year it has been! It’s safe to say that 2020 wasn’t the year we or anyone else expected, and while it’s been a difficult year for everyone, we’re incredibly proud that we’ve managed to achieve some great things. In this blog we’ll take a look back at some of the positive outcomes of 2020 for LACE Housing.
A new housing scheme!
We started the year on a high with the opening of The Burrows, our £4.8m housing development for over 55s in Nettleham, where the handover of Nettleham meant that 82 new homes were developed during 2019/beginning of 2020. The development helped us to reach a milestone in our mission to meet the demand for homes, that are both affordable and suitable for Lincolnshire’s ageing population.
We had a fantastic opening day; children from Nettleham’s infant and junior schools – who named the scheme – unveiled a plaque alongside Councillor John Evans, Chairman of Nettleham Parish Council.
Charitable work for good causes!
2020 has also been a very charitable year for us; we’ve seen many of our staff members and residents join together and help some amazing causes. Throughout the year we’ve been collecting donations for local food banks in Lincoln, Grantham, Skegness and Bourne and for homelessness charity P3.
Residents at our Olsen Court scheme in Lincoln raised funds for The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association. A total of £541 was raised thanks to an afternoon tea, a bric-a-brac stall, coffee mornings and raffles before lockdown came into place in March.
Socially distant celebrations!
As social distancing guidelines have come into place, we’ve had to adapt a lot of the social activities we usually organise for our residents and we’ve found great alternative ways to celebrate some of the most important days of the calendar.
While we were unable to honour Remembrance Day in the traditional way this year, our hospitality and support teams still marked the event by delivering Remembrance Day-themed cakes to all our residents within our extra care schemes.
Our teams at our three extra care schemes also worked hard to make the 75th anniversary of VE Day as special as possible for our residents. Staff prepared and delivered a plated afternoon tea to all residents at Worth Court in Bourne, Olsen Court in Lincoln and Brick Kiln Place in Grantham.
Residents living at Olsen Court also had a fish and chip lunch wrapped in a special newspaper, to enjoy a chippy lockdown-style!
Food glorious food!
As a result of the guidelines, we also had to change the normal service of our restaurant facilities at Brick Kiln Place, Olsen Court and Worth Court. Our hospitality team were able to offer a delivery service of hot meals for residents.
The restaurant staff have also regularly helped to raise residents’ spirits by delivering treats such as homemade sausage rolls, cinnamon swirls and potato skins filled to the brim with bacon and cheese!
We’re extremely grateful to all our hospitality team for their hard work and creativity, as they have continued to find safe ways to ensure that our residents are still able to receive homemade nutritious meals.
A brand new shiny website!
Another exciting development this year was the launch of our new website to support staff, residents and those looking for a new home. The website includes a dedicated area for our residents, which allows them to make payments online, submit a request for maintenance, access various factsheets, guides, policies and more. This has been an important addition for everyone at LACE Housing, particularly throughout lockdown, as it has made things like making payments as easy as possible for residents. Anyone looking for a new home, can view all our schemes by area or the facilities available and apply online.
Mental wellbeing support!
Mental health has been of particular concern this year and to support our residents with their mental health, our staff and volunteers introduced regular wellbeing telephone calls to check in with residents each week. During the first lockdown alone, our team made 5,971 phone calls to our residents including those at our extra care schemes.
Escaping to the seaside!
Not many of us have managed to go on holiday this year, but some of our residents spent lovely weekends at our four-star holiday apartment in Skegness.
Following our Good to Go industry standard certification from Visit England, which approved us as a COVID-secure holiday destination, we opened our holiday apartment to holidaymakers when it was safe to do so.
We went virtual!
Some of our staff have had to adapt to a new way of working to ensure we were still able to provide the very best service for our residents. This has included adopting new video call technology to communicate virtually as a team. Board meetings have also continued throughout the year via video calls and our Board Champion, Karen Seddon made telephone calls to members of the Resident Involvement Group.
A light at the end of the tunnel!
As we come to the end of this year, we’re pleased to be finishing on a positive note – and one which is the highlight of 2020. One of our residents at LACE Housing shared the news of her COVID-19 vaccination – and was one of the first of our residents to be vaccinated. We’re looking forward to hearing about more of our residents getting their vaccinations in the early part of next year.
Last, but not least, we’d like to say a massive thank you to our residents for how well they have coped this year to follow the guidelines responsibly and look after each other and their communities.
All that’s left to say is: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and a safe festive period!
