Supporting our residents

If you have financial difficulties, struggle to pay your bills or need help to replace household appliances, we are here to help.

Through our new Helping Hand Fund from the Riverside Foundation as part of our partnership with the Riverside Group, we can provide small grants and other practical short-term support for households up to £500. Please call us on 0300 123 9966 or complete a self-referral form via your MyOneHousing account.

If you run a community group or any small organisation that supports One Housing residents, you can apply for our Community Fund. We will help fund projects that promote opportunities and wellbeing and tackle poverty in our communities.

So, if you’ve got an idea that could make a difference, we want to hear from you.

Our Welfare Benefits Advisors can help you understand what benefits you’re entitled to, whether you can get help with council tax and how the change over to Universal Credit can affect you.

To speak to a member of the team, give us a call on 0300 123 9966.

Tackling training or job hunting can be a daunting task, but our specialist team can give practical help in writing your CV, prepping for interviews, help to further your career and provide apprenticeship and training opportunities. Learn more about our service.

Barking and Dagenham London Borough Council

Barking and Dagenham London Borough Council has launched the Barking and Dagenham Money website to help residents sort out their finances.

Barnet Council

Residents across Barnet can apply for financial support to help with the rising cost of living through the The Barnet Resident Support Fund (BRSF).

Find out more

Camden Council

Camden Council’s Cost of Living Crisis Fund is for residents and families facing severe financial hardship and who cannot afford essentials – including food, energy bills, water, electricity and housing.

The support can take many forms including payments into bank accounts, vouchers, help with debt repayments or equipment that will help you to reduce your costs and/or keep warm this winter.

Find out more

Ealing Council

Ealing Council has published a range of information on its website about all the different sources of help, benefits, grants and money-saving discounts the council has on offer.

Hackney Council

Hackney Council has created Help at Hand guide which outlines support available to residents.

In addition, the council has launched Hackney Money Hub service to help residents who are in crisis and experiencing financial distress.

Hammersmith and Fulham Council

Hammersmith and Fulham Council has put together answers to the most commonly asked questions about what support is available to residents in need.

Find out more

Newham Council

Newham Council has produced a leaflet to outline support available to residents who struggle with the rising costs of food and energy.

Download the leaflet

Tower Hamlets Council

To help relieve some of the pressure caused by price rises on food, Tower Hamlets Council has partnered with Swan Housing Association to open a Food Store available to all residents living in the borough.

Residents can pick up large amount of food at a low cost every two weeks. There will also be household items available such as toiletries and cleaning products.

• 10am - 12pm, Room 5 at The Reach Community Hub
• 1.30pm - 4.30pm, The IT Room at Bow Cross Community Hub

In addition, the Council has set up a series of warm hubs for residents who may be struggling to heat their homes due to soaring energy prices.

Warm Hubs will be running from a number of Idea Stores and libraries every day during the winter. Refreshments will be provided including hot drinks, squash and biscuits. The warm hubs will also be hosting board game sessions to keep residents entertained.

Further cost-of-living information and advice is available on the council’s dedicated webpage www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/costofliving

Idea Stores information including locations is available at www.ideastore.co.uk/idea-stores

Windsor and Maidenhead Council

Windsor and Maidenhead Council has put together a list of resources on its website to inform residents about support available to them.

West Berkshire Council

West Berkshire Council has created a dedicated section on its website which residents can use if they need help with Council Tax, household bills or food.

Westminster City Council

Westminster City Council has published a support hub section on its website to outline support available to residents.

Wokingham Borough Council

Wokingham Borough Council runs a Local Welfare  Provision scheme to help people who are in crisis or emergency situation.

Find out more

In response to increasing prices and the pressures around the cost of living, the Government has been running the 'Help for Households’ campaign to raise awareness of the support available to those who need it the most.

If you, or your family member, are struggling with broadband or mobile phone bills, please check if you are eligible to switch your package to a social tariff.

Social tariffs are cheaper broadband and phone packages for people claiming Universal Credit, Pension Credit and some other benefits. Some providers call them ‘essential’ or ‘basic’ broadband.

They are delivered in the same way as normal packages, just at a lower price.

View full list of broadband and social tariffs

We are living in difficult times, where the price of energy, food and bills are all rising steeply.

The Greater London Assembly (GLA) has launched a cost of living hub, which provides signposting as well as advice on maximising residents’ income, help with keeping warm, and help for residents in financial crisis.

If you're struggling to pay your bills, we've put together a list of additional resources to help you save money on the cost of running your home.

You can also access Cost of Living Helper.

Funded by the Mayor of London and developed by the Advice and Advocacy team at Hyde Housing, the ‘Cost of Living’ tool is designed to help everyone access information and support as easily and quickly as possible.

The tool is user friendly and can be accessed from any device.

The Energy Bills Support Scheme provides a £400 non-repayable discount to eligible households to help with their energy bills over winter 2022 to 2023. This is to be paid in monthly instalments from October 2022 to March 2023 and will come directly from energy suppliers.

The Energy Price Guarantee will ensure that UK households will pay less on their energy bills this winter. The EPG will reduce the cost of gas and electricity to all households with standard domestic supply contracts and will be deducted from bills automatically.

The Energy Bill Relief Scheme will enable the government to provide financial assistance on energy bills for all eligible non-domestic customers, including businesses, charities and public sector organisations. This applies to energy use from 1 October 2022 for an initial period of 6 months. This impacts your landlord and so there will be a pass on requirement in residents service charges and/or direct billing.

Heat networks will benefit from the EBRS and landlords will be required to pass through the benefits of the EBRS to their consumers, where their tariffs are set at a higher rate than the capped EBRS discount.

The discount will be applied from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024.

The new scheme is designed to support businesses, charities and the public sector. These businesses and other non-domestic energy users will receive a discount on high energy bills until 31 March 2024.

For eligible non-domestic customers who have a contract with an energy supplier, the new scheme will mean that they will see a discount automatically applied to their gas and electricity bill. If/ when this become applicable to One Housing’s contracts this discount will be passed onto residents in the same format as the Energy Bill Relief Scheme (EBRS), either in the service charges and/or in billing tariffs for heat network customers.

The Treasury explained that this will be subject to a wholesale price threshold of £107/MWh for gas £302/MWh for electricity, meaning that businesses facing energy costs below this level will not receive support.

As One Housing enters into new contracts for energy supplies, these discounts will automatically be applied to our energy invoices from the suppliers. It must be noted; however, that our preliminary analysis of the energy market indicated that our next contracts will be below the threshold for receipt the EBDS.

(Please note: the Government supported price has been set based on wholesale energy costs. Customers will also have to pay non-commodity costs, which will vary per district, on top of this.)

The new EBDS has been designed to offer companies relief on high energy costs by providing more budget predictability and price stability. Companies in energy-intensive industries will receive a greater level of support. We will be informed by our Energy suppliers if our contracts at the time qualify for the discounts and will then be in a position to pass this through to our residents.

The scheme will assist businesses that have entered into fixed price contracts during a period of high energy prices to manage their costs and provide other businesses reassurance against the possibility of prices increasing again.