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The online utility brings people together around their homes including tenants, leaseholders and housing managers, to achieve common goals, adhere to housing legislation and improve real life experiences.
Neighbo.com provides housing managers with a platform to achieve the goals laid out in the Housing and Regeneration Act in 2008. This includes enabling tenants to be involved in the management of social housing and ensuring that registered providers of social and private housing can contribute to the environmental, social and economic well-being of the areas in which the housing is situated.
The service brings social networking to a hyper-local level, creating niche communities based on geographic area. The beta phase has seen the technology rolled out in 60 private housing blocks across the UK.
PHC Management Ltd, a property management company, has set up active Neighbo.com sites across 16 residential communities. Mark Postle-Hacon, managing director of PHC Management Ltd, comments: “Using Neighbo.com has enabled me to establish a closer relationship with the residents of the properties that I manage. As a managing agent, the residents are at the core of what I do and having a direct and flexible communications channel enables me to effectively take action on their behalf.”
Kevin Harris, founder of Local Level, an independent consultancy that offers expertise in neighbourhood life, offers his endorsement of Neighbo.com. Kevin states: “We know that levels of general trust are declining and people retreat indoors. We also know that when people interact with their neighbours online, it stimulates face-to-face interaction and shared action about their environment.
“Neighbouring is not about friendship; it’s about recognition, reassurance, and the availability of support in time of need. Neighbo.com offers all of these. Having a service that combines social connection with the practical issues of management makes a lot of sense, because that’s how people live their lives.”
Housing legal expert, David Barrett, Associate at Thomas Eggar LLP, commented, “Social housing regulation has tightened up with the introduction of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008, which will provide new challenges and opportunities for Landlords and Tenants alike. The Act will ensure that new residential developments are both sustainable and compliant, and that tenants have an effective voice in the management of their homes. Social media technologies, such as Neighbo, will play a crucial role in this new regime.”
David Barrett added, “Going forward there will also be opportunities for Landlords running properties in a fair and transparent way to become registered providers and receive funding for the development of low rent and affordable housing -social networks which track communication between landlord and tenants and prove compliance will play a key part in raising housing standards.”
Paul Fox, managing director of Neighbo.com, says: “With ever increasing internet usage enabling consumers to connect with virtual strangers anywhere in the world, we have forgotten the importance of communicating at a local level. Neighbo.com brings back the focus to residential communities and the importance of connecting neighbours around their homes, using online tools to improve their real life offline communities.”
Neighbo.com is a socially inclusive tool available for residents and managers of social and private housing. It is designed to empower and facilitate resident action and community collaboration. Neighbo.com also allows registered providers of social housing to contribute to the environmental, social and economic well-being of the areas in which the housing is situated, in line with Government legislations.
Neighbo.com is powered by Wordframe - a social media platform that includes blogs, wikis, social networking, generation of RSS feeds, group messaging and document management. Wordframe provides a secure social media platform that combines all of these technologies in to a web publishing and collaboration environment to build better web communities.
Pinnacle Housing is a principle Neighbo.com investor. The company provides a range of services including housing and facilities management, and is the only private sector organisation accredited by the Housing Corporation to manage government-funded social housing.
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neighbo[.]midnight.co.uk 
