I like to bring people together to develop new processes and foster collaboration across services to deliver the best service.
Alex Manaseh – Accommodation Solutions Manager
I have been an Accommodation Solutions Manager for Barnet Homes since 2018. I am tasked with overseeing placements into temporary accommodation ensuring alternative options are explored. I lead a team delivering innovative housing solutions and making effective use of available housing options. Our mission is to reduce the number of people living in temporary accommodation and unsuitable housing in Barnet.
My professional background is in Hotel Management and Hospitality. Hence, my first role in Barnet was as a Customer Services Officer with Barnet Council in 2013. However, my voluntary work helping prisoners settle back in the community inspired me to shift my career towards achieving social change. This ignited my passion to move careers into the social housing sector and use my time to better support people in need. To support this career move I needed research housing policy as well as benefits and welfare advice in my own time.
In 2015, my desire to alleviate homelessness pushed me to become a Housing Options Officer at The Barnet Group. Working with the Housing Options team has enabled me to increase my knowledge and understanding of housing law and internal allocation policy. I particularly enjoyed overseeing cases from start to end, enabling me to investigate thoroughly people’s situations.
After a few months, I joined the Homeless Intervention team as a trained mediator. I was working with clients who were issued an NTQ – ‘Notice to Quit’ by family and friends. My main purpose was to sustain them in current accommodation, or if that was not possible, to move them to settled accommodation rather than temporary. In 2018, the Homeless Reduction Act was implemented which challenged the team to quickly adapt processes to fit the new law. I personally saw this as an opportunity to aid my own development. I was able to grow professionally as well as better serve our customers.
The variety of voluntary and professional experiences I have undertaken have shaped me for my role as Accommodations Solutions Manager. Over the years, my mindset has been to see challenges as an opportunity to learn. This has facilitated my personal and professional development and has enabled me to better serve our people.
I was fortunate enough to attend numerous internal and external courses and have been proactive in shadowing and self-learning to further develop my career.
I am extremely passionate about my job; I like to bring people together to develop new processes and foster collaboration across services to deliver the best service. I am so happy how the team has grown and developed since it was created. All my team members are amazing, and it is a privilege to work with them. My team has grown with me and seeing them progress from Housing Options trainees to officers and beyond has been an amazing experience. Never underestimate the impact that one person can have when sharing experiences and attempting to deliver the best service they can.