FAQ

TAROE Trust is an independent registered charity that assists people living in or looking to access affordable housing within the regulated housing sector. TAROE Trust was established out of the now former TAROE – Tenants and Residents Organisations of England – so that we may pursue charitable aims.

TAROE had a longstanding history within the tenant movement. It was established in 1997 through a merger of two national tenant organisations: the National Tenants and Residents Federation (NTRF), whose origins date back to 1988, and the National Tenants Organisation (NTO), which was created in 1976.

TAROE Trust has charitable objects that are set out in our constitution. This means that all our activities must promote the following:

• The relief of financial hardship by providing free advice and assistance on housing issues to persons who would otherwise be unable to obtain it.
• To promote social inclusion for the public benefit among people who are excluded from society or part of society by:
  • Providing advice and assistance and building capacity on housing matters
  • Working to promote the needs of people who are socially excluded and to raise awareness of those needs among housing providers, service agencies and the general public
  • Researching links between housing and social exclusion and publishing the useful results thereof

• To develop capacity and skills among members of socially and economically disadvantaged communities which evidence deprivation in such ways that they are better able to identify, and help meet, their needs in housing related matters in particular and to participate more fully in society.

TAROE Trust works in a variety of ways to assist tenants, within the restrictions of our available resources. Examples of how we support tenants include the following:

• We engage directly with Government to influence national housing policy. This is informed by our longstanding and continuing direct engagement with tenants living in the regulated housing sector across the country. Our current priorities for change are summarised in our ‘Manifesto for Change’ document.
• We engage in tenant focused research which we use to inform our campaigning activities.
• We use the feedback we received from tenants, and our longstanding understanding of tenant issues, to respond to major housing-based consultations to ensure that the tenant voice is heard when housing policy is being formed.
• We engage directly with a broad range of bodies responsible for creating and influencing the formation of national housing policy matters. This includes sitting on various working groups. We are recognised as a key stakeholder in tenant related matters by the Government.
• We directly support tenants to resolve issues that arise with their landlord. This may be signposting, or where resources permit, assisting tenants to resolve complaints and mediating to achieve a solution, taking account of the needs of both tenant and landlord.
• We provide general advice on housing related matters to people living within the regulated housing sector, or options available to those seeking to access the sector. This is based on many years of experience of supporting tenants in this area.

If you currently live within the regulated housing sector, or are looking to access the regulated housing sector, we will try our best to provide you with support and assistance.

Just get in touch via our Contact Us page.

Any advice and support we offer is subject to the resources we have available. We currently operate on very limited resources, and much of the direct tenant support work that we do is on a voluntary basis.

All our services are provided on a free of charge basis. We understand that many people accessing our services will have limited resources, and we never charge for our advice and support.

Our predecessor organisation used to access some grant funding from the Government’s former Tenant Empowerment Grant programme. This ended in 2010. Since this time, we have mainly relied on donations. This explains one of the main reasons why established TAROE Trust as a registered charity in 2013.

We have had to look for innovative and creative ways to fund our continuing work. However, we are always keen to stress that our independence always comes first. We never allow any of our donors to influence what we stand for.

Examples of ways in which we have generated income in recent years include the following:

• We have provided expertise in tenant related engagement to a major repairs contractor operating within the regulated housing sector. This has resulted in charitable donations. This project has now come to an end.
• Our staff have professional housing sector knowledge. Small levels of consultancy services are provided to landlords where we can see this adding value to their tenant services. Any income generated from these supports our other charitable work.
• We sometimes speak at conferences to inform audiences about tenant related matters. Any donations received in return are always gratefully appreciated.
• We operate a Supporters of TAROE Trust scheme. This allows organisations that are supportive of our activities make modest charitable donations to support our work. Full details of our Supporters are disclosed on the Supporters page.
• Individuals can make one off or continuing charitable donations to support our work. Please visit our Donate page to find out more.

From October 2020, TAROE Trust has received funds under a grant agreement with the Fusion21 Foundation. It is anticipated that this will total £210,000 over the three years to 2023.

We wish to operate as transparently as possible. As a registered charity, our accounts are published by the Charity Commission. These contain full disclosure about our activities, income and expenditure. You can also access a copy here: TAROE Trust Accounts 2019-20

In short, no.

First and foremost, it is vitally important that TAROE Trust remains independent. This means that we do not have to make compromises when we are campaigning for tenants living in the regulated housing sector.

We also believe that it is important that we are transparent about where we receive our donations. Details of our Supporters are set out on our Supporters page.

When we were TAROE, we operated as a membership-based organisation. Membership was available to individual tenants as well as tenant groups such as tenant management organisations, tenant associations and other umbrella tenant groups.

When we changed to a registered charity, we were no longer able to operate as a membership organisation. It is important that we offer our services to everyone who falls within our charitable objects. We also appreciate that many tenant groups themselves have very limited resources, and we do not want funds to be a barrier to accessing our services.

There are a variety of ways that you can stay in touch with us and support our work:

• You are still able to make one-off or continuing donations to TAROE Trust. You can do this via a secure online payment portal offered in partnership with kindlink. You can find out more about how to donate to us on our Donate page.
• You can sign up to our Mailing list. This will mean you receive our newsletters and other important key information about our activities. We promise to not bombard your inbox with lots of emails and we never share your details with third parties.
• Sign up to follow us on social media. We can be found on Twitter and Facebook.

Just complete our Contact Us form on our website.

You can make either one-off or regular donations to TAROE Trust via a secure online payment portal offered in partnership with kindlink. You can find out more about how to donate to us on our Donate page.

If you are an organisation who would like to support our work, why not become a Supporter? You can see a list of our current Supporters on our Supporters page.

You do not have to give us money in order to support our work. We value all feedback from tenants across the regulated housing sector. This helps us to understand the issues that are most important to tenants and informs our future work.

The best way to keep informed and engaged with our work is to sign up to our Mailing List.

Details of events that we arrange and host are posted on our social media channels and to subscribers to our mailing lists. It’s therefore a good idea to subscribe to these so that you don’t miss out: Mailing List or follow us on Twitter or Facebook.

If you have any ideas for future events, please Contact Us.

When we refer to the “regulated housing sector” we are referring to what is more generally known as ‘social housing’. There have been many changes to this sector in recent years, and it now includes a variety of sub-market rented housing, shared ownership, and leasehold properties.

As we have set out in our Manifesto for Change document, we prefer to use the term the “regulated housing sector”. The reason for this is that we are concerned that the term “social housing” is often used to stigmatise tenants living within this sector.

We strongly believe that everyone should be able to access decent, affordable housing, and that the regulated sector should be a “sector of choice” and not a “sector of last resort”.

If you would like to know anything else about TAROE Trust, then please do not hesitate to Contact Us.

We would like to keep this FAQ section up to date and relevant. We will add new sections based on any other questions we receive.