Through our research, we’ve identified specific neighbourhoods that will benefit most from targeted support. These are known as Community Investment Zones (CIZs).
Each zone has a dedicated Community Development Officer who works closely with residents, local organisations, and partners to understand community strengths, priorities, and challenges.
Customer involvement is central to this process. We take the lead from those who know their communities best, shaping Community Investment Plans together to ensure support reflects real local needs.
We believe the best ideas often come from the people who live in our communities. That’s why we invest directly in local projects through our £90,000 Community Fund.
The fund helps bring community-led ideas to life, creating positive change and new opportunities. Applications are reviewed by a funding panel made up of customers and local residents — ensuring decisions are shaped by lived experience.
Our Community Cafés, Round About Café in Mansbridge, Southampton and Café 1759 in Whitehill & Bordon, provide delicious food at affordable prices for the local community. But they each offer so much more. The Café’s are home to Abri’s in-house community pantries and deliver a huge variety of different of clubs, activities and events that benefit the local community.
Our Community Wellbeing Co-ordinators work across the whole of Supported Housing. They work with colleagues and customers to create plans and run programmes that promote promote community cohesion, independence, health, wellbeing, dignity, choices and equal opportunities for all customers.
They get involved with developing and sustaining partnerships with customers and local agencies, including the voluntary and community sector.
We work in partnership with various agencies to provide services and access funding, allowing us to deliver the best possible services to our customers. Recently, we've worked with Age UK's Falls Prevention Team who have helped fund exercise classes for customers across our regions. We've also worked with he Happy Healing Hut to set up a brunch clubs in multiple schemes.
If you're an organisation looking to work with us, or a customer with a great idea for a project, we'd love to hear from you.
If you're in the south, please contact Jim:
If you're in the south west, please contact Beverley:
If you're in the south east, please contact Adam or Kerry:
Our community pantries provide food at a fraction of the cost of supermarkets while helping to reduce food waste too.
We've got community pantries across our geography, from our Mobile Pantries in Somerset and Bracknell, to those in our Cafés and community hubs. We also work with partners who run community pantries in our regions.
