The capital's housing officers spend each day tackling Londoners' troubles, yet these these low-paid professionals struggle to meet their own housing needs.
Lorraine Howe
Position: London Borough of Newham community housing officer
Salary: £22,000

Lorraine Howe, aged 46, has worked for the London Borough of Newham for the past 12 years and describes herself as a natural problem-solver.

Although she claims not to be just trying to fly the Newham council flag, she says that one of the reasons she enjoys doing her job as much as she does is that Newham has the policies to cover nearly every problem that tenants have. Lorraine also loves the tough stance that these policies enable her to take.

"At Newham, if people have a problem with a neighbour, we don't accept that they are to be bullied into moving away. What we do is go straight to the root cause of the problem, sometimes with the police, to confront it and try to solve it," she says.

Another reason Lorraine finds it so rewarding to help tenants is because she knows only too well how it feels to be vulnerable and in need of help. Before she began working at Newham council she was a victim of domestic violence. This, she feels, has given her the experience and ability to solve the different types of social problems that she often faces in her job.

After splitting from her husband, Lorraine moved to a brand-new social housing development in Beckton, east London. She decided she wanted to preserve the quality of her new environment and soon became head of the tenants' association for the estate on which she was living.

She says: "I felt a great sense of achievement working for the tenants on my new estate, so by taking my skills to work in housing at Newham it seemed like a really natural step."

Lorraine now lives in Romford with her new husband in a privately owned semi-detached house, on which she initially struggled to pay the mortgage because of escalating interest rates and her relatively low salary.

My salary only allows me a small box room, which is very depressing

Clare Greenham, housing officer

She believes buying a private house as soon as she could afford to do so was the right thing to do. "I don't believe in housing association right-to-buy schemes," she says. "As soon as I could afford to buy a house for myself, I did, because if you don't, you deprive a low-income family of five the chance to live in a home that they need."

Helping people gives Lorraine great satisfaction, even if it is just to point them in the right direction or give them some minor piece of information. She explains: "I was even encouraged to stand to become a local councillor, but that wasn't really for me. I just wanted to help people with their day-to-day problems as best I could."

Clare Greenham
Position: Housing officer for Hyde Housing Association
Salary: £18,200

A 21-year-old housing officer for Hyde Housing Association, Clare Greenham lives in Camberwell, south London, in shared accommodation with three other people. She pays £330 a month in rent.

Originally from Bristol, Clare moved to London after completing her A levels and spending a period working in administration and travelling. As a housing officer for Hyde, she does not yet decide who will be housed where, but shows people around accommodation in London, signs up tenants to specified properties and deals with all the problems of tenants such as neighbour nuisance.

Clare considers her job demanding for the pay she receives. She explains: "Part of my job involves chasing people over neighbour problems, and also having to evict them, but so far I haven't had any major problems and I haven't been harassed. But I feel that I am low paid for the highly stressed job that I do."

Although she sees herself as a key worker living in London, Clare has decided not to try to apply for a housing association flat. She adds: "I could apply for housing association accommodation but I know I would not score enough points to qualify for it, so I basically haven't bothered – although I think I should qualify."

The problem for younger, new housing officers is they are not seen as key workers – which they are

Jas Vinder Singh Sandhu

It was after completing work experience in a housing association that Clare became interested in the housing sector. She moved to London from Bristol in order to climb the career ladder. "In Bristol it is difficult to get a job in a housing association because the staff turnover is not that high, whereas in London there seemed to be lots of jobs to choose from," she says.

"The problem is, at the moment, my salary only allows me to live in a small box room in south London, which frankly is very depressing."

Jas Vinder Singh Sandhu
Property management officer for Bush Agency Services, part of Shepherd's Bush Housing Association
Salary: £23,000

Jas Vinder Singh Sandhu, 36, manages two separate blocks of flats, placing low-income tenants and asylum seekers in short-term accommodation.

He lives in a three-bedroom semi-detached house in Heston, in the west London borough of Hounslow, beneath the flightpath into Heathrow airport. He explains that although its value has risen from £74,000 when he bought it to more than £200,000 today, in order to climb the property ladder any further he would have to return to his original home city of Leicester, where property is much cheaper.

Jas feels sorry for most housing officers, as they face a tough time trying to afford to live in London. He says: "I'm in a fortunate position as I have many years' working experience and have also earned more money working in the private sector."

He adds: "The problem for younger, new housing officers is that they are not deemed key workers – which they are – and have to compete in a very competitive private housing market."

I’m caught in the middle – I currently rent but can’t afford to buy

Christine Newby

In his role at Bush, Jas deals with day-to-day problems such as tenants' rent arrears, noise nuisance and having to evict tenants. Although his job can be very stressful at times – often requiring him to deal with disruptive people and the police – Jas believes that he finds his tasks easier than most housing officers, because of his Indian background.

"I speak Punjabi and it helps a lot in the job I do, because there are a lot of race issues when dealing with tenants and I find people can relate to me more," he says. In addition, Jas has to deal with a lot of asylum seekers, who are especially vulnerable. "Part of my job is to reassure the asylum seekers when placing them into accommodation and make sure they are happy and safe," he says.

Christine Newby
Position: Housing officer, Hyde Housing Association
Salary: £21,000

Single mother Christine Newby, aged 38, has been a housing officer for Hyde for 12 years. She has worked in housing since completing a youth training scheme with Lambeth council at the age of 16.

Christine deals primarily with short-term tenants. Her job is to place the tenants referred to her in housing association accommodation in order to give them time to find somewhere permanent to stay.

She lives in housing association accommodation in Brixton but says that trying to bring up two young children on a relatively low salary makes her housing situation difficult.

"I'm caught in the middle – I currently rent and can't afford to buy. And I'm definitely not going to part-buy through a housing association, as then you own your property but are treated as a tenant," she says.

Christine believes housing officers should be categorised as key workers, especially in a climate of escalating property prices. She feels aggrieved that this is not the case and hopes that government measures being considered for key workers will include provisions to help housing officers.

The key worker question

The government’s £250m starter homes initiative promises to help key workers across the UK gain a foothold on the property ladder. Its most recent set of handouts awarded 520 NHS staff £10,000 in equity loans towards their first home. But the term key worker – which broadly covers staff in health, teaching and the police and fire services – does not apply to housing officers, despite, in many cases, the similarity in average salaries.
How the salaries compare
Bus driver£19,430
Postal worker£21,180
Staff nurse£21,950
Fire service worker£24,360
Primary school teacher£26,360
Police sergeant£35,345
Source: New Earnings Occupational Analysis, Office of National Statistics, 2001