Keeping people safe in the NPA

Published: 

24 September 2020 2:10PM

Wendy calls the Northern Peninsula Area (NPA) home. She’s a senior customer service manager with the department’s tenancy management team and helps the community with housing. She says the great thing about her job is meeting the local people.

“Overall, there are about 500 tenancies we manage in the NPA,” Wendy said.

“We get to know our tenants really well, working with them and assisting them in their housing and property enquiries.”

When communities closed to protect people from COVID-19, the NPA Regional Council supported her team to continue services for the community.

“We stopped face-to-face contact and home visits to keep people safe, and found ways to work around the challenges,” Wendy said.

“If a tenant needed to sign forms, we would work very closely with the regional council to get that done.”

The department’s Housing and QBuild teams worked closely together to continue property maintenance.

QBuild Senior Supervisor for the NPA, Sam Wasaga, said protecting the health of people in remote communities was a priority. He said QBuild introduced alternative management strategies to support the delivery of maintenance works in communities while the access restrictions were in place.

“By doing this, we were able to continue delivering for the community and progress all projects as planned while keeping everyone safe,” Sam said.

For Wendy, COVID-19 has helped her learn how to work outside her comfort zone and keep up the support for her community, despite the obstacles.

“We’ve put in place non-contact visits and we continue phone and email contact with tenants,” she said.

“During COVID-19, I’ve never felt disconnected from the people and our tenants. I’m really, really proud of what we’ve managed to do together, to keep people safe.”

Find out more about our immediate housing support during COVID-19.