Affordable recycled PCs made available to housing association’s tenants in drive to get residents online
Stone Group is providing Affinity Sutton with cut-price recycled PCs as part of the housing provider’s ‘Get Connected’ programme, set up to help get tenants online ahead of the introduction of new government initiatives such as universal credit.
The recycled PCs come with a 12-month warranty, are installed with Open Office software, or if eligible Microsoft Office 2007 Basic and Microsoft Security Essentials, and cost £133.00 including delivery and installation. Affinity Sutton and Stone Group also ran competition to give away 50 free PCs to tenants.
Iyabode Olaitan, a previous winner of the housing provider’s ‘Get Connected’ programme, had to travel to a local school to use their spare computers in order to complete her Nursing Access coursework. Since then, she has saved countless hours travelling and cut her daughter’s nursery school fees by £85 per month. Her savings on her nursery fees now pay her utility bills and the £40 per month she is saving on bus fares is now funding a pay-as-you-go dongle to access the internet at home on her new PC. She said, “Since winning my PC, my work has improved and I am confident that I will pass my nursing course, helping me and my family to have a better life.”
Scott McKinven, financial inclusion manager, Affinity Sutton, said, “As the government wants 80 per cent of applications for universal credit to be done online by 2017, we feel it is in our interests, and our resident’s interests to have a means of getting online and accessing the services that they need. But beyond that, we recognise the wider benefits of our residents having a computer and access to the internet.”
