What does living in an almshouse mean?

Firstly, it means you have a home now for the rest of your life, or at least so long as you can live independently. There may come a time when you just cannot cope, even with carers, and if this situation does occur, the trustees will work with you and your family about what is best for you.  

We expect you to pay what we call a Weekly Maintenance Contribution or WMC for short. Other people call it rent, but, remember, almshouses have been around for a very long time, centuries in fact, and so this is what beneficiaries or residents are asked to pay towards the upkeep of the home they have been given. If they cannot afford the sum of money i.e. the Weekly Maintenance Contribution or WMC, then the trustees would expect that the resident would qualify for Housing Benefit.  The trustees deliberately set the level of WMC below the maximum level at which Housing Benefit is payable via the local authority, so that we know that someone who cannot afford to pay the WMC will always be able to qualify for Housing Benefit which, at the present time, is £148 per week for a single person.

You are not a tenant as we only ask you to sign a simple 2 page document when you are appointed as a beneficiary of our Charity which lays out what we expect of you. We do not have a large complicated tenancy rule book. We do expect you to be respectful towards your neighbours and to be respectful of your home as well of course paying your WMC! That is all.   

In addition to paying your WMC, there may be a small extra sum to be paid as Service Charges. We pay a gardener to come regularly to mow the grass and do some other maintenance work in the gardens to keep them looking nice. We encourage the residents to tend the gardens too, and have some pots with colourful plants in them. In the case of Feedhams, where all of the bungalows get their water from a central supply and are not individually metered, we re-charge the cost of water as part of the Service Charge. And at the Sanford almhouses, gas central heating is from a communal supply and this cost too is recovered from the 6 residents via the Service Charge.

Residents are also required to pay their own Council Tax and electricity bill.

The trustees pay to insure the buildings, but not the contents. In addition we pay all the bills for the care and maintenance of all the buildings, and all plumbing bills including things like electric showers.   

Our aim is simple, we want to have happy residents.