Tenancy Skills Institute

Wishing all Tenancy Skills Institute supporters a Merry Christmas and a safe and happy holiday season. As the year draws to a close, we have now upskilled over 25,000 Queenslanders with practical tenancy skills since 2017. An incredible milestone to celebrate as we head into the festive season. Thank you to all of our valued Tenancy Skills Institute supporters for your engagement with us this year. We have never felt more connected with our supporters, especially within the Community Sector, School Communities and the Real Estate Industry. Knowing you share our vision of better rental outcomes together propels us forward. We'll be back in the new year continuing our work in homelessness prevention and early intervention through a tenancy education and partnership approach. We can't wait - see you in January!

Congratulations to the final Tenancy Skills Institute Graduates for 2024. Wednesday's rent-ready graduates (some pictured here) are the second cohort of students from The Twin Rivers Centre at Eagleby to complete the Skillsets for Successful Tenancies (full course) in December after completing the Introduction to Renting course. It was also a poignant day for our team of expert trainers as it was our last Tenancy Skills Institute training session offered for free in Queensland via our contract with the State Government, which ceases on 31st December 2024. The Tenancy Skills Institute will be back in 2025, continuing our work in homelessness prevention and early intervention through a tenancy education and partnership approach. So, as we sign off from our last class, let's celebrate what is most important to us: knowing that another classroom of Tenancy Skills Institute Graduates now have practical skills and knowledge in their toolkit to manage renting successfully and sustain tenancies!  

Today marks the end of one hell of a chapter in the Journey of the Tenancy Skills Institute. A chapter made up of 25,000 stories. It marks the end of our government funded tenant education in Queensland. It is the end of the chapter, but not the end of the book! The photos are significant. The first is of Nerissa Wade & I catching up for a final lunch with our Cairns team, Gavin M Ah Kee and Jessica Fleitas. It’s a ‘bye for now’ lunch. The second and third are of the cafe at Holloways beach which is where our Cairns Chapter really started, and ended. The pic with the blue sky is from the day that Mark Davidson and I interviewed Gavin to join our team. The pic with the cloudy, rainy sky is from today, it’s quite fitting really! The last pic is from 35,000 feet and is a reminder that beyond the clouds is always a clear sky, sometimes it’s just harder to find. A huge thank you goes out to our entire Tenancy Skills Institute team, there is so much to be proud of. Now we will start writing the next chapter!

Another extraordinary story from a Tenancy Skills Institute Graduate. We encourage you to take a moment to read Jackie's incredible story here.

With funding from the Queensland Government for the Tenancy Skills Institute coming to a close at the end of this month, we thank REB (Real Estate Business) for highlighting the importance of free tenancy education for #Queenslanders during the current housing and homelessness crisis. Read more at the link below. Sam O'Connor MP David Crisafulli MP Department of Housing and Public Works

The PM Assist App is the latest cross-sector initiative between the Real Estate Industry and Community Sector that the Tenancy Skills Institute is leading as part of inCommunity. Great to have our longstanding partner McGrath North Lakes on board so early, getting involved. Thanks as always Laura Valenti and team for your support!

Tenancy Skills Institute Graduates to the front! Congratulations to yesterday's class at The Twin Rivers Centre at Eagleby, who completed the full tenancy education course after previously undertaking the Introduction to Renting course. Each Graduate heads into the new year with a Tenancy Skills Institute Certificate, recognised by thousands of Property Managers throughout Queensland for the practical 'how-to' skills and knowledge they have learned to manage a rental property successfully throughout their studies with us.    Thanks to the wonderful Twin Rivers Centre team for having us again! 

As the year draws to a close and with enormous changes on the horizon for the Tenancy Skills Institute, our expert trainers continue to deliver tenancy education to as many #Queenslanders as possible before 2024 ends. Today, our Training and Community Engagement Officer Blair Roberts completed the second day of delivering the Skillsets for Successful Tenancies Dollars and Sense 10-hour course, open to community members in #Mackay. Another group of Queenslanders, upskilled with practical 'how-to' skills to apply for and manage a successful tenancy, and another group of proud Tenancy Skills Institute Graduates to applaud. Congratulations to all!

13,000 people engaged with at least one of our programs in the 2023-2024 period, double, plus some more from the previous year—a year of huge impact. This time last week at our Annual General Meeting, our CEO Paul Tommasini and Deputy CEO Nerissa Wade delivered inCommunity Inc's 2023-2024 Annual Report: Innovate. Inspire. Independent. This report explores how these three words embody the 'in' within inCommunity and how we embed them at each touchpoint of our organisation as we seek to support people at risk of or experiencing homelessness. We highlight critical initiatives and programs we delivered in 2023-2024, such as: 🔸 Preventative and early intervention strategies via the Tenancy Skills Institute;  🔸 Deepening our commitment to the specialist profession of Case Management in the Community Sector as led by inCommunity Connect to ensure we continue delivering a quality specialist housing and homelessness service; and  🔸 Onsite access to health care in Ipswich or bed nights for people sleeping rough via Beddown initiatives. When demand for our services has never been higher, our organisation continues to work tirelessly to inspire people as they move forward on their pathway to stable housing. We invite you to take a moment to read just some of the incredible stories that occurred this year - a year when 13,000 people were inspired to believe they could! https://lnkd.in/etiY-4jD (Select 2024 Annual Report, Click Open in Browser)

Tenancy Skills Institute Update: Last week was a tough one, probably the most difficult in more than 20 years leading inCommunity.  Last week Nerissa Wade & I met with our Tenancy Skills Institute team to share the news that despite our best efforts we were unable to secure ongoing funding for our tenancy education programs in Queensland. Unfortunately, this means the current programs will cease at the end of this year. It was particularly difficult because this team has been smashing their targets, and positively impacting thousands of lives in the process.  In fact, this team achieved almost double their targets last financial year and has already trained 1.5x the annual target in just the first 4.5 months of this financial year.  This program certainly isn’t coming to an end due to low performance, low demand or low impact. I personally thank Chris Jones, Tony Cook, Blair Roberts, Gavin M Ah Kee, Sarah B., Jessica Fleitas & April Broadie for their unwavering commitment and loyalty, even knowing that there was no funding certainty past December this year.  Thank you for showing up, for the early flights and late nights, for changing thousands of lives, and for making my crazy idea a hugely successful reality.  Together, we have blazed a new trail, often going against the status quo, to create something truly unique.  It’s never easy when you tackle a world first program, but it’s absolutely worth it when you nail it. You all have my absolute respect and admiration for everything you have done. As we head into 2025, the Tenancy Skills Institute as we knew it will look different. We will reinvent it, continue to innovate and lead the way in homelessness prevention and early intervention in partnership with the private sector.  We will continue to work alongside all levels of government who are committed to preventing homelessness. We will be back; better, stronger, and eventually, we will get the band back together!