Harassment and racism 

This forms part of our Anti social behaviour policy.

Sheffield Homes believes that all its customers should live in a safe and secure environment, free from any form of harassment and anti-social behaviour. Harassment and racism cause real misery and distress to people and will not be tolerated.  Harassment and racism can take many forms including verbal abuse, attacks on people and property, offensive graffiti and offensive literature or rubbish put through letter boxes.

We take complaints of harassment very seriously and we are committed to taking whatever action we can to deal with perpetrators of harassment and support the victims.
Our Service Standards are set out in the Anti-Social Behaviour Customer Charter (downloadable below). These include:

• We will arrange to see you within 2 working days of you reporting your problem to us.
• If English is not your first language we will, at your request, arrange for translators to help us to investigate your report and ensure you get all the information you need from us.
• We can also provide an interpretor for a person who is deaf or ask for a British Sign Language signer.
• We will take full details and investigate your report quickly. 
• We will keep you informed of our progress and contact you at least once every 2 weeks until the case is resolved.
• We will review the progress of the case at least every 2 weeks to ensure the right action is being taken.
• Where the perpetrator is known we will take whatever action we can to deal with their behaviour.
• Where the perpetrator is not known we will do whatever we can to find out who is responsible.
• We will remove any offensive graffiti within 1 working day of it being reported to us.
• We will quickly repair any damage such as broken windows caused by perpetrators of harassment.
• We will treat your report in stict confidence.  If believe it is necessary to discuss the case with anyone else we will ask your permission first.

We will treat all complainants and witnesses in a sensitive, supportive and understanding way and provide support measures as described in our Witness support policy.  We also keep a list of statutory and voluntary organisations who are able to offer support and advice to victims of harassment.
If we cannot take the action you want us to, we will fully explain the reasons for this.

Complaints of harassment are investigated using the anti-social behaviour procedures. 

Definitions of Harassment

We define harassment as:

"Any act of, or threat of, violence, intimidation, verbal abuse or damage to property which is carried out (or which someone believes is carried out) because of a persons race, religion, cultural differences, sex, sexuality, age, metal health, disability, or because they have HIV or AIDS".

We define racial harassment in line with the findings of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry: 

“A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or by any other person”.

We also define Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender harassment as any harassment that a person suffers because of their sex or sexuality.

All council tenants are subject to a tenancy condition (condition 19), which forbids them from harassing other people.