New education projects for tenants and landlords have received almost £40,000 in funding, the TDS Charitable Foundation has announced today. The Foundation aims to promote education for tenants and landlords in the private rented sector, and to raise standards in the industry. The projects range from a local youth club helping young care leavers to a nationwide programme for landlord accreditation across the UK.
Warrington Youth Club: £2,374
Warrington Youth Club’s ‘Positive Life Skills’ programme helps young care leavers in their transition from carers to an independent lives. The TDS Charitable Foundation grant will help this hard to reach group as they prepare for their transition to independent living, providing workshops on their rights and responsibilities as tenants.
Young Enterprise and Personal Finance Education Group (PFEG): £20,000
This project will also help young people in their transition into independent living, providing a new financial education teaching resource for 14-19 year olds. The resource will provide young people with information on the housing market, the options available to young people when they leave home and the costs they will need to prepare for.
Unipol Student Homes: £10,112
Unipol is providing a new website for Accreditation Network UK (ANUK). ANUK promotes landlord accreditation programmes across the UK and the improved website, to be managed by Unipol, will include a directory of landlord accreditation schemes and downloadable accreditation handbooks. It will also contribute towards one of their core aims, in the promotion of proper complaints processes to be transparent, rapid, and known to tenants.
NUS Ready to Rent: £17,295
Ready to Rent is a landmark programme equipping student unions with resources to help students in the private rented sector. The funding will be used to extend the programme to Further Education Student Unions. Ready to Rent launched last year with support from the Foundation and has become well established as a resource and training provider.
Chairman of the TDS Charitable Foundation, Professor Martin Partington said;
“We have received a diverse range of interesting new projects aiming to help the ever growing private rented sector. The number of private tenancies recently grew beyond the social sector for the first time in decades so it is vital that tenants, living longer in rented accommodation, and the growing number of landlords investing part time in property, have easy access to information on their rights and obligations.
The projects we are funding are just one way to help raise standards in the sector. I look forward to reading the applications for funding for our next round in September 2015.”
The Foundation is currently welcoming bids for the next round of funding which is open until 15 September 2015. Organisations can download an application form and view the bidding criteria online at www.tdsfoundation.org.uk