We are pleased to announce that we have been awarded £80,000 from the Scottish Government’s People in Communities Fund for the year 2015/16.  ANCHO is one of only 197 organisations across Scotland who has been allocated funding to help change disadvantaged communities by providing local projects to tackle poverty and promote social inclusion. 

£40,000 was allocated to take forward a ‘Small Steps Project’ working with elderly and vulnerable people in the community.  The grant will pay for a Community Engagement Worker to deliver a Good Neighbour Service aimed at identifying isolated tenants and matching them with suitable volunteers, as well as continued funding for an Employability Officer to assist clients into further education, training and employment. 

A further £40,000 was allocated towards taking forward a new Youth Arts Project. The Project will cover Film Production and Performing Arts and will include weekly workshops culminating in theatre productions and roadshows which will be taken out into the community.  This is a 2 year project and is also part funded by Young Start.

ANCHO’s rents are still one of the lowest housing association rents in Ayrshire, despite an increase of 2.8% being applied to our base rent for the coming year.  

Rent is our only source of income, apart from some grants for wider action activities and to install medical adaptations.  Rents pay for the services and improvements provided to our tenants.

We try to keep our rents as low as possible, but costs go up every year and we have to make sure we have enough money to continue to provide an excellent service to our tenants.  For 2015/16 our Management Board agreed to increase our rents by 2.8%.  This will increase our income by £73,000 over the year - enough to keep pace with costs and do all of the improvements needed.  This equates to an additional £7.58 per month per tenant, on average.  And the good news is that 83% of our tenants still think our rent is good value for money.  This compares well with the Scottish average for 2013/14 of only 76%.