Recently, all executives of Wonen Limburg spent a day at Fresh Forward's Service Station in Hilversum, where they worked together on the theme 'Struggle'. This as part of a three-day program on social impact and responsibility within their theme 'Welcome Home'. We asked Marita Muller, co-organizer of these 'experience days' a few questions about this.
Why was there a need to organize a day dedicated to being challenged on social developments and in particular one of the Futurise themes: Struggle?
We have hired a fairly extensive number of executives over the past year and a half who are fairly new to the club and whom we have gotten to know less well through corona. At the same time, we are reassessing our strategic direction "Welcome Home" for 2022 through 2026; where are the nuances, where are we going to focus? For example, there is now the urgency of a housing crisis, there wasn't in 2017. So there are really some socially social things that are different. At the same time, we considered that "Welcome Home" with this club of people has not been discussed at all extensively.
We haven't been able to take the time to properly reflect on that yet. So then we asked Fresh Forward to help think about how the realignment of the strategic direction could be "glue" for these 24 people. Those 24 people were called the "Community of Friends. And then we came up with a 3-tiered set of themes: Pleasure, Utility and Happiness. And the last one in particular is about: What do we share as a common value of our organization? What is our social contribution? And do we all feel it in the same way? Because then you are fighting for the same thing. And then the theme of fighting quickly emerges. If we can grab each other and say collectively, "This is what we stand for," then we are fighting together. Of course that also requires decisiveness, innovative capacity and cooperation. A whole host of things with which to shape that fighting spirit together. In order to ultimately realize that social task.
Can you give an example of what you are fighting for together, also looking at the current zeitgeist?
The housing crisis is a major feature of the current zeitgeist. There is a shortage of housing. And "without a house no home," so we need a lot of houses in the short term. We have a huge task there and we have to tackle it in an integral way. Developing real estate also means taking into account the social situation in a neighborhood. What should come here? What are the demographic developments, are there liveability issues? So we let everything coincide much more, where the urgency on real estate is really a given. And in addition, we see that neighborhoods have really changed. Where you used to meet the Limburger neighborhood, there the Limburger already feels much less at home right now. With different nationalities, people with mental health backgrounds, poverty issues that really put a strain on a neighborhood. And there we have a role, we have a responsibility.
But government decisions on care also directly affect the neighborhood. Where people used to live intramurally with hefty mental health backgrounds and they now just move into regular housing - of course with supervision - that is very different and much more difficult for the neighborhood. It's not a given that you understand your neighbor. And also look at the flow of migration that has increased enormously recently; not only migrant workers from Eastern Europe, but also the flow of refugees who, once status holders, obviously also live in our homes. These are characteristics of these years that, where it was already quite difficult, have made it even more difficult.
What were your expectations for this day of "fighting spirit" and what did you want to achieve for your organization?
What we wanted to achieve, we achieved. That, first of all, is a lot of inspiration. That by comparing different stories - maybe from a completely different sector - you feel what someone stands for, believes in it so much that if you work together in the right way, you can make the world a little bit nicer. With that feeling, we drove home. That does something to a group of people. And then having a bite to eat together, having a chat, getting to know each other in a different way, being together again live, yes that does something, really! And also very good that it gets follow-up. That two months later, apart from the day-to-day activities, you take that time again and go back to where we were last time. What are we going to do today, what next step are we taking? So that there is a development in it as well. Also a wonderful stage for the newer people to ask questions. 'What do we mean by that? Explain?' Being curious about each other, that's also in there.
During this day, you heard inspiring stories through multiple speakers, even through a livestream with Mohamed Helmy in Cairo. Are there any particular stories that made an extra big impression on the group?
Yes, the story of the founder of Holy Beans made quite an impression. Also perhaps because that is the most tangible thing. That you realize that a concept like Holy Beans would really do something in our neighborhoods. We used to talk about the cookie factory in Yonkers, New York, once the subject of an episode of Tegenlicht. A factory where people could just get jobs with criminal records, as long as they did their jobs. As a result, the neighborhood was "lifted" by a cookie factory. We sometimes cry, "we need cookie factories in our neighborhoods," and yes, Holy Beans is a cookie factory of sorts, of course! So that caught a lot of people's imagination and we're going to follow through on that. We're going to see how we can put that to concrete use. It doesn't have tangible forms yet but we haven't let go of the mindset. And the last time we were together, we heard the story of Eric van 't Zelfde of Super School. Of course, as within the education sector, we too have laws and regulations that prevent us from doing certain things that are not within our field of work. But the way Eric went to buy 670 winter coats anyway, knowing that it was most likely not allowed, made us think. How can you seek not the limitations of the law but the opportunities of the law? And then see what you can still do. It does "turn us on.
You mentioned that you are in the process of recalibrating your strategic direction for 2022 through 2026. So was your purpose of these days to be challenged to sharpen or update your strategy?
That was not so much the purpose of these days but it coincided very nicely. We realized that this re-evaluation belongs in these days so we were able to weave it in very nicely. Beautiful things are indeed coming out of that recalibration. Where we used to have a theme like: 'real estate is our means', basically saying that the brick is the means to get closer to our residents to see where their needs are, we see in a housing market crisis that this is no longer sufficient. That you actually have to say, 'without a house no home.' That has to be our theme. It stands or falls with that. Surely different insights arise during such a reassessment. And to discuss this together during such a day is of course worth its weight in gold.
What do you currently see as major social developments that impact your industry?
Developments in the world have become increasingly complex in recent years. People sometimes say that the crisis is over, but in a lot of Limburg neighborhoods the crisis is not over at all. And poverty really is still a huge issue. Just like loneliness. We also want the elderly to live independently at home for longer, which means quite a lot. There are so many different themes that come together in the neighborhoods, we really see that continuing in the coming years.
Fortunately, we are pulling together with a lot of parties in this. There are quite a few care partners and welfare organizations that realize that we should not want to do this all alone, but really together. And you also have to deal with collaborations with police, with education, with all partners in the neighborhood because you see that it belongs to all of us. We are generally the party that signals first because we don't just go into the neighborhood if there's already a problem but because we often get behind the front door earlier. We then hook up with care or welfare. Can we collaborate with energy suppliers, for example, in the case of payment arrears? Because if people can't pay their energy bills, rent often doesn't work out either. Can't we help each other in this on the basis of early warning? These kinds of coalitions are forged almost every day because you see that we should not try to solve it all from our own agenda. Together it goes much better and faster.
You are often visible in the neighborhood and you are often the first to spot what is going on. Is that a conscious role that you play? Isn't that actually also an element of combativeness, that you want to stand up for the residents and be there for them?
Yes, that's a very conscious choice. The moment you say "Welcome Home" is our credo, that doesn't mean you give someone the key and then say, "Figure it out, it's a very challenging neighborhood but you'll find your way. No, if we can offer a helping hand or connect people with each other, we have a responsibility to do that.
How do these developments in the neighborhoods affect you as an organization?
We take on the pioneering role, daring to experiment, daring to challenge The Hague, but also - and perhaps most importantly - integral cooperation. Where you used to have a housing cooperative with a real estate arm and a social arm, we now see that these are inextricably linked. This also requires a different profile of the people working there. People who do not develop something purely on the basis of the bricks and mortar, but who are very aware of the social context in which it must fall. That requires an organization to think much more outside its function. Really look over the edge of your function where you have a role, also towards other departments. Much more integrated project teams are being created that can work together on a project from all kinds of departments. You can really see that changing in our organization. That things are being tackled much more collectively.
During the day on militancy, Mohamed Helmy mentioned that there are many different ways to stand up for social interests or be militant, including through the application of art, grafiti, dance, etc. Are there any similar initiatives you have undertaken to connect with society?
These are then mainly initiatives where we involve residents to see if it will help them empowered to taking initiatives or developing talents. It is particularly cultural projects that we do. For example, we are creating a beautiful "mural" in Heerlen on the wall of the Aurora flat, together with artists and residents. Something fantastic is being created there! And that does something to people. That you put your shoulders to the wheel together and you see that your neighborhood has improved so much and that it is in all the newspapers. These are examples of how we use culture to get people to take a step forward.
I also had the opportunity to speak to Mohamed himself for a while, and in particular about how you often take three steps forward out of fighting spirit and then get pushed back two. How do you persevere in taking the next three steps forward? These are things that we know how to translate to our field, albeit on a smaller scale. And of course there is no acute danger, like in Mohamed's environment, but it is frustrating to see again and again when rent arrears arise in a certain complex, for example, while we have done so much to prevent it, deployed budget coaches, tried this, tried that, and then you see rent arrears arise again. And then to say: 'never mind, we'll try again'. Those are also really similar things when I think about the interview with Mohamed, that we don't give up. And then there are also individual casuals. That you can help a particular person, for example, but that fundamentally we're always looking for how to make it more collectively. That fundamentally you can tackle it structurally with a large group of people. And those are very nice quests if you know what you're doing it for.
And that immediately says something about the mentality and behavior of the people within your organization. How do you keep people motivated to keep going despite regularly being thrown back a few steps?
Yes we did. That's why we did the sessions with Fresh Forward. Struggle also means not giving up. And that also means giving people the freedom to try things. And if things don't work out, it's no big deal. Making mistakes is allowed. As long as we learn from them. And as long as you take it up from the right conviction. Certainly also from role-thinking, we encourage people to do things, to try things out. We have a common goal that we want to achieve. And then we need guts and strength. Then we need new ideas. And then it happens that you have to step back once, that's part of it.
What are you hearing back from the neighborhoods. How do they view you as an organization?
That varies enormously. There are tenants or residents who know us as a discussion partner and really want to sit down with us to discuss how we can do the right things in the neighborhoods. There are also residents who see us as the party to make sure a faucet doesn't leak anymore. And there are a lot of tenants who just pay their rent and don't have much else to do with a housing association. And that's fine, too. But we are especially looking for residents who would still like to play a bigger role in this, who want to be heard and tell us where the needs or obstacles are so that we can help. My colleague put it so beautifully the other day. She said, "We always ask residents to participate but they already live there, we have to participate!". That is so well said. We are the professional in the neighborhood, but what can we do best. You need the dialogue with the residents for that, otherwise we will fill it in ourselves.
Spending 24 hours with residents is one of your initiatives to become more empathetic to the issues in the neighborhoods, what does something like that do to you?
Yes, that, of course, is the way to create a tremendous amount of empathy. That in a very real way you know how to put yourself in the shoes of someone who has to get by on, say, 50 euros a week. And who is happy when it is finally the day the food bank distributes. 90% of our colleagues live in an owner-occupied house that they chose for themselves. Then it really is necessary to be able to empathize with someone who has less freedom of choice, who is less financially comfortable. That strengthens your fighting spirit.
Are you guys really constantly coming up with initiatives to stay connected with residents? Is that a standing item on your agenda?
Certainly, even on those in the back office! So even if you work in HR or finance. It has to get under your skin that everything you do contributes to making things a little easier for residents. And that's also sometimes a quest. It's so logical that when you perform your professional duties that are not directly related to our residents, you feel that connection less. And it is then our role, from the leadership point of view - which is what we worked with during the days at Fresh Forward - to really consciously take the team into the kind of organization we work for. And that's a really nice awareness process.
In November you will conclude these three experience days. Will you continue to do sessions like this to keep challenging yourself to see if you are still on the right strategic course?
Yes indeed. Now that corona is so far out the door, we can actually meet again. And we see that it is needed. That will perhaps be in other forms. We'll have another day together in November and we'll catch up with each other after that, for example, around various themes, occasionally having a drink together. I am sure we will continue to meet structurally in one way or another. This can be spontaneous or directed, but we will of course cherish the connection that is there now. And that is of course apart from our 'normal' daily collaborations.
Finally, what did it bring you to experience these experience days together like this? What would you like to give to other organizations?
It is important that you express and pursue what the common purpose is, why do we do what we do, what are we on earth for as an organization? And that you shape that together so that everyone may embrace it in their own way. Then fighting spirit is so much easier to feel because you really are in it together, back and front office, just the whole club. Share successes, share stories, make it big, make it small, but it all has to contribute to what we feel is where our responsibility lies.