Tenants associations are groups of people living in an area, block or street who come together to take up issues about their housing or environment with the local authority or in the case of our tenants and leaseholders Enfield Homes the arms length management organisation involved in running and maintaining where they live.

There are many reasons why you and/or you neighbours may want to set up a tenants association.

For example you may want to:-

·    find out other people’s views on important events that are affecting people where you live

·    get fellow tenants or residents together in order to get something changed

·    campaign for new facilities or against something happening in your area

·    organise events or promote a greater sense of local community

You can find out more about setting up a tenants’ or community association by contacting the Tenant Involvement Unit at Enfield Homes on 0800 40 80 160 or the Tenants Participation Advisory Service Information Service (TPAS) you could find out who is interested by organising a `fun-day’ or local community activities and spread the word about what you would like to do in the area.

One of the first steps is to discover whether there is sufficient interest amongst the tenants and residents in your area to make the formation of an association possible. To do this you will need to talk to as many people as you can before doing anything else. This can be achieved in a variety of ways, including: -

·         Door knocking, over the fence chats etc.

·         Going to the shops that your community uses

·         Going to other places where people meet socially

If you meet and talk to people in different places, you will be able to get an idea of how much support there is for starting a group.