One person’s journey from homelessness and single parenthood to building a successful career and raising a family shows exactly why Fortem’s new Customer Partnership Board (CPB) giving residents a voice in shaping services matters.

Home as the foundation

Having a secure, safe place to call home has been the foundation of this board member’s life and has shaped a determination to help improve services for everyone who calls social housing home.

Moving from abroad to the UK to study, she speaks openly about the challenging circumstances that followed.

After leaving an abusive relationship, she found herself homeless and heavily pregnant, with no family around her.

Spending months in temporary council accommodation, her first child was born while living there, exposing them to the practical and emotional impact of not having a home that was fit for purpose. With a baby to care for in a small room, everyday tasks became challenging: bathing, cooking and finding space to play, to name just a few.

Then, in 1994, they were offered a brand new two-bedroom Sanctuary home with a garden. The impact was immediate. “When I got my Sanctuary home, I cried,” she says. “It was the first time I could let my baby boy crawl safely in the garden. That home was life-changing for us both.”

“A safe, secure home is not just an address, it’s a starting point,” as she puts it. “Home isn’t just important; it’s the foundation, the base, for everything else in your life.”

Learning from lived experiences

That’s why she decided to apply for Fortem’s new Customer Partnership Board, which brings together residents from the housing providers Fortem works with, alongside representatives from Fortem and Tpas, who have partnered up on this unique initiative.

“I was delighted to get the call confirming I’d been chosen to join the panel, bringing the voice of the customer,” she says. “Housing is a big topic. We can’t afford not to talk about it.”

Bringing two perspectives that are invaluable to the CPB, this board member understands what it feels like when housing is the difference between instability and a stable base for life and, as a successful senior leader, also understands how change happens inside large organisations.

She’s clear that improving the customer experience often comes down to the basics: being proactive, communicating well and preventing issues rather than reacting to them.

Pointing to ageing homes and “what was working but stopped”, such as annual home checks, as practical examples of how consistency can protect customers and properties, the board member adds: “The homes are your assets as landlords. There’s a responsibility to be proactive and interact with the people in them. The lack of housing providers doing this is a big issue.”

Challenging the narrative

Following these early experiences, and with an inspiring strength of spirit and determination to build a life for her family, she became passionate about tackling the stigma that surrounds social housing, especially the assumption that people who live in those homes can’t be successful or are “happy on benefits or wanting handouts”.

Her own story challenges that stereotype in every way.

With a secure home, this social housing resident went on to study, with the help of a local charity and a close friend who provided essential childcare support.

Today, she works as an IT leader for a utilities organisation, leading change in a complex organisation while also raising a family. She also supports Sanctuary, who she says will always have her gratitude, through resident advisory work, and even finds time for reverse mentoring with senior leaders, something she describes as a fantastic experience where a real difference can be made.

Believing that the sector has a real opportunity to reframe perceptions of social housing, and of the people and families living in those homes, she says: “There’s a stigma that people in social housing aren’t successful and the government rhetoric surrounding the sector is anything but helpful. We need to change the narrative.”

Having previously lived in a European country where over 60% of the population live in rental homes, this board member also brings a unique perspective. “In many other countries, owning your own home isn’t seen as such a big deal,” she says. “Renting, whether privately or from an affordable housing provider, isn’t stigmatised the way it is here.”

Turning insight into action

As one of five members taking a seat on the Customer Board Panel, this resident believes Fortem’s decision to launch it is a bold step – one that can set a new standard for how customer insight shapes strategy and service delivery and even become a model other housing associations can follow.

She also loves that there is a strong commitment to keeping the panel independent and grounded in real life by reflecting a wide range of experiences, with a clear focus on what good looks like and how to deliver what customers need most.

That means turning lived experience into practical improvements people can feel, translating what residents say into actions, measures and accountability that make change stick, while keeping sight of the wider context.

“Social housing doesn’t sit in a silo,” she says. “Work, unemployment, childcare, it’s all interlinked with home.”