Aspire Housing has moved the administration of its grants’ funding to the Charis Shop platform, thereby cutting its costs by 70 per cent and allocating grants to tenants faster.
Prior to its adoption of Charis Shop, the housing provider was spending over £10 per BACS transaction for every request for funds it received from one of its 8,500 residents and taking several days to authorise payments to residents. After working with Charis, Aspire Housing has cut its costs to just £3.50 per transaction and reduced payment authorisations to around 15 minutes.
Christina Thwaite, senior money advisor, Aspire Housing, said, “We’re now seeing more and more residents who are only just managing. These are households that we probably wouldn’t have needed to work with before because they have jobs and, until now, have been able to manage their budgets on a week-by-week basis. Unfortunately, due to the economic situation, even those who are working are reaching out for additional support.
“To illustrate how busy we are with funding requests, our annual target for grant applications is £6,000 but we’ve processed £14,000 of applications within just six months. Without the Charis Shop to run through the applications, we would be in a much more stressful situation and our tenants would be suffering as a result.
“We can also track the funds that have been distributed so we have reassurance that as many vouchers as possible are going to the right people and that we’re not doubling up by giving vouchers out to the same people.”
