Supporting our customers through the rising cost of living
At Abri, we know that the rising cost of living continues to place pressure on household budgets. Our priority is ensuring that families feel secure in their homes and have access to the services, support and guidance that can make a real difference.
Our Cost of Living Steering Group was originally set up during the Covid19 pandemic to analyse the findings from our cost of living surveys and turn that insight into practical support for customers. As the rising cost of living has become an ongoing challenge, the group has evolved into our Financial Resilience Steering Group. This new focus reflects our broader approach, enabling us to address a wider range of financial pressures and better support customers in building long-term financial stability.
We’re always looking for ways we can better support our customers. Recently, we heard directly from 11 Abri customers aged 16–34 as part of a young renter’s presentation. The findings showed that younger customers feel particularly affected by cost of living pressures and debt. They also responded positively to the idea of having dedicated support from an Abri colleague, particularly someone who can clearly explain what payments are needed and when, alongside proactive check-ins to make sure help is in place. Building on this, we now contact new customers within two weeks of a tenancy starting, to confirm they understand how and when rent payments are made, and we’re reviewing our onboarding processes to ensure all essential information is included.
As well as finding new ways we can support our customers, our Financial Resilience Steering Group regularly meets to track our progress with the support we provide and is constantly looking for new ways we can do more.
Here are some of the ways we’ve been supporting our customers with the cost of living:
Accessing support from the government
Our Tenancy Support Services team has supported customers to access nearly £8m in Discretionary Housing Payments, Housing Benefit and Universal Credit over the 2025/26 financial year. This vital income strengthens financial resilience, eases pressure on household budgets and helps customers maintain stable tenancies.
Making life more affordable with Housing Perks
Housing Perks continues to play an important role in helping customers save on everyday shopping. Since its launch in 2025, we’ve promoted it regularly across our platforms, ensuring customers are aware of the savings they can unlock.
To date, more than 1,200 customers are actively benefiting from Housing Perks. Customers have saved money on everyday essentials, and nearly £8,000 has been paid directly onto rent accounts, supporting secure, sustainable tenancies.
Saving on household bills
Pocket Power is a UK-based social enterprise dedicated to helping people on lower incomes reduce household bills. Through this, 128 households have saved an average of £239 each, reducing the cost of energy, broadband and other key utilities. These everyday savings free up income where it’s needed most and help customers stay on top of rising bills.
Essential furniture and white goods
We’ve helped more than 400 households live comfortably at home by providing essential furniture, beds and white goods through SCRATCH, St Margaret’s Hospice and Thames Hospice. These items ensure customers have the essentials they need to live safely and comfortably.
Fuel support
Fuel vouchers have supported more than 400 households, helping customers stay warm particularly during winter months when demand and energy costs are highest.
Cheap, healthy food
We’ve issued more than 1,200 food vouchers and 1,000 referrals to food banks. Our rapid-response support ensures customers can easily access essential food and supplies during the moments they need them most.
Our community pantries in the Round About Café, Café 1759 and Longwood also continue to offer easy, low-cost access to nutritious food. These services help customers and communities save money while reducing food waste and promoting wellbeing. Providing nearly 6,000 shops over this financial year, our community pantries have saved customers around £130,000 based on a £22 saving per shop on average.
Improving the energy efficiency of our homes
We’ve completed energy efficient works in 1,300 homes, with 5,200 more scheduled. These upgrades usually involve improving the loft and cavity wall insulation, along with installing solar panels to ensure they receive an EPC rating of C or above. In doing this, we are increasing the quality of our customers’ homes and making them more energy efficient, climate-friendly and cheaper to keep warm.
Supporting customers facing urgent financial pressures
The Household Support Fund is money provided to us by the local authorities we work with that we can issue to customers in need of urgent support. Last year, we delivered nearly £39,000 to our customers, including £150 grants to some customers in Clewer and Dedworth, one of our Community Investment Zones.
Coming up
We’ve partnered with Clarion and LiveWest on a joint project called the Social Housing and Resident Experience (SHARE) report. This brings together results from each organisation’s annual customer survey to allow for meaningful comparison across the sector. We’ll be speaking to customers about this soon as we run our own independent survey and work closely with our research team to analyse the data we get from it and how we can best support our customers.
Getting support from Abri
For any customer finding the cost of living a challenge, we’re here to help with practical advice, support, and services that can help to ease the pressure and support in building long-term financial stability.
Whether it’s help with rent, energy bills, food, furniture or applying for benefits, our teams can connect you with the right support. A full overview of what’s available is on our customer support page.
To get in touch with our tenancy support services team, call 0300 123 1567.