9 February 2010

Pact’s new social housing and enterprise development manager started work in the Dunedin office this month.

Ferdi Koen comes to Pact from Housing New Zealand where he became familiar with Pact clients and gained a good understanding of the sector and social housing needs.

Pact CEO Louise Carr says there are two aspects to the new role.

Firstly, Ferdi (who is reporting to service development and quality assurance manager Glenn Murtagh), will be looking at the social housing initiatives Pact is investigating. Louise says social housing is part of a continuum of support for Pact. Pact clients may benefit from having Pact as a landlord and Pact could also supply housing to non-clients who have a need for affordable accommodation such as the elderly or those on low incomes.

The other part of Ferdi’s role is to look at starting some micro-enterprises within Pact.

"He’s there to look for client opportunities in enterprises both supporting Pact and outside of Pact."

For example a client or group of clients might want to earn some money taking in ironing. "It could be as big or small as you want it to be."

Another idea is to start growing vegetables but someone needs to organise everything involved in that.

With the departure of service manager Karen Lesley, Glenn will assume responsibility for the new vocational service and Ferdi will also work with the staff in the service, which should tie in well with the enterprise development role.

"With the departure of Karen we felt Ferdi’s skills meant his role could be widened to include working more closely with the vocational team."

Campus coordinator Lana Taouma, 420 coordinator Bob Smart and Options coordinator Raelene Shanks will report to Glenn.

• Pact CEO Louise Carr will be attending the Social Enterprise Conference in Auckland this month. "We’re hoping to get out of it, ways in which Pact can develop and grow in response to community needs."