I enjoy my work at AH apart from my normal duties at reception, I also have the time to chat with the residents, about themselves, their hopes and dreams, their families, when things go right for them it makes me feel happy, but when things don’t work out I feel for them. They are my extended family. Anchor House is wonderful place to work it is friendly and welcoming.

Paris was the easier choice, my French wasn’t too bad, contrary to English that I knew very little (almost nothing) plus in Paris I have close family. At the end I chose London, I was looking for challenges too. For almost six of these nine years in London my life is connected with Anchor House.

I came here at the beginning of 2004 as resident and at the end of 2005 I became a member of staff. I have seen massive changes since. After my experience as resident it is good to see the kind of improvement this organization has reached and I have a strong feeling that more is to come therefore more challenges for me.

Anchor House is a place were anyone that comes in can feel like being in a home. I am very proud with the way all the staff works together for the good of the residents. It gives me joy whenever, I see the residents smiling even though they  might not have all they need yet the support the get from the staff keeps them going.

A few months ago I dwelt upon the challenges facing my organisation, Anchor House, in the light of  Pope Benedict’s Encyclical Caritas in Veritate: we had decided to go back to basics and, by respecting the sanctity of every individual, we are now coming to terms with our new reality.

 What does our new reality mean?

 In dealing with over a hundred homeless, ostensibly single people, we have gone back to the basics, as I have had to ask myself what is expected of me and my staff. Our residents give us the answer everyday of the week in their dealings with ourselves. We have developed a community where we have the roles of father, mother, brother, sister. Membership of this community is devoted to a common cause, the personal development of our residents so they can obtain jobs, be good citizens and obtain their own housing.

 Our community now has a wider membership, that of our former residents coming back to their ‘family home’. I never imagined that I would be in a maternity suite on a Sunday when one of my staff was a birth partner for a young woman. Young mothers bring back their children to show how proud they are. Role models and peer mentoring are becoming a new reality.

 I was talking to a forty-odd year old resident recently about the direction of his life and he described how one of my staff had the mother role to our residents and that I played the father role. This accolade brings with it a need for us to reappraise our relationships and how we relate to everyone; particularly for the staff group as they consider their roles.

 We have to consider how we provide the love of the family setting whilst getting the message of ‘tough love’ over to our residents. Does this cause us to have a dynamic debate with strongly-held views on both sides? Certainly, but we are united in the role of serving our residents and getting the best for them. Consequently we sometimes have to go to places that we have never envisaged.

 Where have we gone?

 In dealing with the needs of our residents, my staff  have had to bulldoze themselves into doctors surgeries to ensure that the medical profession consider more than the obvious, and get to the heart of the matter.

 Why were we in the police cells to ensure that one of our residents got the right treatment?

 Why are residents dealt with differently if we turn up at the Job Centre with them?

 We have to go through rules and procedures that at times are not conducive to the dealing of the problems being faced by our residents.

 We see the laxness of the rules surrounding Members of Parliament expenses whilst at the same time we see our residents being increasingly put through the hoops about benefits of about £60 per week. I am not for one moment suggesting that monies be paid over for nothing, on the contrary, we believe that there should be recognition of the fact that benefits are paid for a reason.

 One of our residents was offered a retail job by the job centre, the employer then decided to pay in cash, with no payslip. Our resident did the right thing but has subsequently been penalised by the benefits system: we in turn did not receive any rent. The rule books can be hard to cope with at the bottom of society.

 Increasingly we are seeing our residents being offered jobs where they have to agree to a pre-work assessment period of unpaid work of sometimes up to a month in length. Their benefits get messed up, they often seem not to get the job and then others are taken on. Call me a cynic, but though the job market is very problematic, I struggle to see how this type of behaviour is conducive to developing a long-term relationship with the long-term unemployed, who if we are to be believed will be targeted by whatever party comes into power after the next general election.

 The relationship between society and our residents needs to be reconsidered. We are placed within a procurement system for training and employability initiatives that determines that such initiatives have to be regional, sub-regional, pan-London: yet our relations are with our residents are on a one to basis. Is there a place for a new paradigm, from the bottom-up in society, as opposed to prescriptive contracts that rule out individuality and personal relationships?

 Why do I believe this is important?  Well it is quite simply because, on a daily basis, the strength of my staff’s personal relationships makes a difference to their lives. We recently had to separate two residents who had a major disagreement, where chairs were going to be smashed down on heads. Our relationship with our residents saw beyond the major problems of anger, one has now achieved a good job, the other is volunteering and has a positive future.

Is there a need for a new paradigm? We think so, where would our two residents be if their disagreement had taken place in a job centre, a police station or a doctors’ surgery? Prison would be a possibility. Our preventative and personal approach to relations saves society untold thousands per year, is it time for a new preventative bottom-up Paradigm?

Keith has had a varied career as Director of Housing at LB Southwark, Deputy Chief Executive of the South London Family Housing Group, Director of Building Services and Managing Director of Services at LB Newham.

As a Management Consultant, Keith led major change programmes in Central Government, spent time with Clinton and Gore’s Reinventing Government Network in the USA and advised the Maltese Government.

Keith has led organisations that have gained Investors In People, won National Training Awards and, at Anchor House has won the Michael Whippman Award for Service User Involvement.

Keith currently chairs the Newham Single, Specialist and Small Provider Group and is a member of the Brentwood Diocese Commission for Justice and Social Responsibility.

Keith is a West Ham season ticket holder, he plays volley ball, skiing and loves beetroot sandwiches.