Hampshire and Districts Residents’ Forum (HDRF)

Hampshire and Districts Residents’ Forum (HDRF) was formed in 2009. It is made up of residents from a range of social housing providers in and around Hampshire, who between them provide affordable homes for 70,000 households. HDRF is one of the largest groupings of its kind in the UK.

The Forum emerged from an event held in March 2009, when more than 100 residents from 14 Hampshire housing providers teamed up to discuss how to drive up standards across the sector. The event was part of a huge consultation event, called the ‘National Conversation’, which was organised by the Tenant Services Authority and which aimed to shape standards of service provided by social housing landlords across the country.

Some of the things we are working on:

• The Hampshire and Districts Residents Forum brings together resident representatives and staff from housing providers to create a clear resident perspective within Hampshire, and the surrounding areas.
• The Forum considers and contrast the service offer to residents across the range of service providers.
• The Forum explores the creation of resident inspection team (s) for its members.
• The Forum will provide a sub regional voice to discuss and debate local and national issues which affect or influence the services, standards, choices that affect residents.

One of the Forum’s first projects has been to devise a set of local standards for resident involvement, making use of grant funding from the TSA’s Tenants Excellence Fund. This has involved a great deal of hard work from residents, facilitated by the Tenant Participation Advisory Service (TPAS). More information about the local standards can be found elsewhere on this website.