For Maria, Executive Manager, Finance and Assurance at Women’s Housing Company, sustainability is about more than financial stability. It is about ensuring we can continue supporting women today and long into the future.
Long term sustainability underpins everything we do, from maintaining safe affordable homes to expanding our reach so more women experiencing housing insecurity can access the support they need.
We asked Maria to share her thoughts on what sustainability looks like for a community housing provider, why financial and operational viability are critical to our mission and how thoughtful, responsible growth can help us support more women over time.
Q. What does sustainability mean for a Community Housing Provider like Women’s Housing Company?
A. “Women’s Housing Company needs to be able to generate sufficient ongoing operating income to meet the costs of maintaining the properties we manage on behalf of the NSW Government, our own properties that provide tenants on a subsidised basis and properties leased from the private market.
We do this while maintaining service levels that are consistent with the values of our organisation and the standards set by our customer service charter.”
Q. Why is financial and operational viability so important to our mission?
A. “As we serve women who are in vulnerable situations, and often under significant financial hardship, we subsidise a high proportion of rental and asset maintenance costs.
Therefore, we rely on prudent fiscal management to ensure we maintain our properties to the standard required by our government bodies and external funding contributors.
We also have opportunities to expand our property portfolio as specific funding grants become available.”
Q. How do you balance growth with maintaining quality services?
A. “Our core business is providing vulnerable women with safe housing choices. This is our first and foremost priority.
We always strive to ensure we achieve our tenancy and asset management performance benchmarks set by regulatory bodies and overseen by our Board.
Growing our property portfolio means we can serve more vulnerable women in the community. We balance our time and resources between conducting property maintenance, tenancy management and empowerment programs while also pursuing grant opportunities and property portfolio enhancements as and when we can.”
Q. What are the key challenges facing the sector right now?
A. “The sector, of course, seeks to assist as many vulnerable people as it can.
The constraints it faces is that the costs of maintaining property portfolios and providing services are outpacing the income streams community housing providers receive.”
Q. How does long-term sustainability enable us to support more women?
A. “Long-term sustainability will enable Women’s Housing Company to continue to provide an excellent service to our tenants, while also using modest surplus funds to invest in expanding our property portfolio to help more women.”
Q. What does a future-proofed organisation look like to you?
A. “An organisation structured to deliver services with operating efficiencies in place to reduce costs without compromising the services we deliver. Achieving this also enables us to reinvesting surpluses to house more women.
We will continue to seek diversified income streams to support the work we are doing which will lead to making a greater impact in the community.
To support growth, our corporate services need to provide scalability and best practice to serve both the Board and operational staff. Women’s Housing Company is investing in upgrading its information systems to facilitate informed decision-making using real-time data, while also reallocating routine administrative tasks to meaningful tenant support.”
Q. What motivates you to ensure Women’s Housing Company can grow its impact over time?
A. “I am passionate about working in organisations that provide a helping hand in our community.
Guiding not only our financial sustainability but contributing to the growth of our organisation is wonderful privilege.”
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Balancing sustainability, demand and long-term impact For Maria, Executive Manager, Finance and Assurance at Women’s Housing Company, sustainability is about more than financial stability. It is about ensuring we can continue supporting women today and long into the future. Long term sustainability underpins everything we do, from maintaining safe affordable homes to expanding our reach […]
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