Update: 5th August 2019
George Clarke is beginning a campaign to re-energise social housing. Join him here.
‘TV architect and Big Issue cover star George Clarke’s petition, aimed at persuading the government to build 100,000 council houses a year, wins massive approval on its first day…’ Source: Big Issue
Working in communities, for us, involves delivering free support and resources to the nascent individual social entrepreneur or the community group, incorporated or not, involved in the transition to an active community focused business.
The nature of developing community business, or individual entrepreneurship, often involves a wider dialogue about social policy and the quality of life for residents in the broadest terms. Housing is often part of that narrative.
SocEntEast Mids does not offer advice on matters concerning investment, banking or legality. We freely collaborate with community players to share our decades of aggregate experience in community development and enterprise engagement.
That said, as the conversation in the meeting room, or community centre eddies and swirls towards a conclusion, it is useful to be able to tender some broad signposting around themes of concern, as part of that engagement process.
The narratives, data and contacts below, all freely available in the public domain, are an attempt to provide such a signpost.
A really useful place to start is the Power to Change: Business in Community Hands pages. here you can find grants that ‘…support projects that build of refurbish affordable homes’.
Homes in Community Hands ‘…are focusing on community groups in the early stages of their community-led housing development to support feasibility and predevelopment work, leading up to submitting a planning application. Our research has shown that is where funds are needed most to get projects moving’.
Discover more here: https://www.powertochange.org.uk/get-support/programmes/community-housing/
Targeting Funding to Support Community-led Housing is a publication also from Power Change. Authored by Tom Archer, Anna Kear, Catherine Harrington – Power to Change August 2018.
This is an essential primer when thinking about engagement in any aspect of community led housing projects.
Development stages, funding stages and the current provision of the funding and financial support available are all clearly labelled here.
Also useful in the appendix of the publication is the advice given on how to do a SWOT analysis of funding need for your development stages.
Even more current is Helping Communities Build – A review of the Community Land Trust Funds and lessons for future support. Authors: Dr Tom Archer, Dr Stephen Green with Charlie Fisher | January 2019, this publication, was produced by Sheffield Hallam University and the Charities Aid Foundation.
Community-led housing schemes empower people, enrich local communities and improve the lives of residents. They can breathe new life into a village by offering affordable homes below market rate to families that are priced out of the area they live and work in.
The authors argue that CLT’s are a currently under deployed tool for community social enrichment, but non the less, this paper highlights the context of the mechanism and is, in our opinion, particularly honest and useful in making an assessment of obstacles and pinch points in any community housing scheme.
See more here…(pdf).
CAF and Power to Change also have a useful web article on a new source of funding available – Blended Finance Available for CLT’s. Authored by Anne-Helene Sinha, it is a new and pioneering offer in the marketplace.
CivilSociety.co.uk have a useful article by James Johnson – Should you invest in Social Housing?
Johnson’s argument is, essentially, that investors with a conscience can all help to alleviate the current housing crisis by investing in the sector. He is also strong on the weakness and re-directions of central government in the housing mix over time…
…blame can be laid at the door of government. In 2009 (the last full year of Gordon Brown’s administration), Whitehall provided £11.4bn towards the cost of building homes. By 2015 (under David Cameron’s Conservative-led coalition), this had over halved to £5.3bn. More pertinently, perhaps, in terms of GDP, the fall is even more dramatic – it has dropped from 0.7 per cent to 0.2 per cent.
A depressing tale, well told with numbers to underscore the disparity of supply versus demand.
More useful links for data and context:
The Plan to End Homelessness, by Crisis, is also another salutory lesson in how housing and welfare policies have failed to work effectively, either with each other, or with the homeless to create sustainable and affordable solutions to the present crisis.
Big Society Capital also have data and information resources of Social Housing and Homelessness. You can see a sector snapshot and data from 2017 here… (pdf).
They also offer some useful case studies, in an article by their Investment Manager, Aman Johal, on the factoring of social investment to amplify housing and local facilities.
See more here: https://www.bigsocietycapital.com/about-us/previous-projects/housing-and-local-facilities
Editor’s Note:
SocEntEastMids does not offer banking, finance or legal advice. Our free resources and support is dedicated to sharing our decades of community enterprise experience collaboratively with the nascent social entrepreneur or ethical business minded community group.
We are happy to have a ‘social enterprise’ conversation at any time, and to donate free resources, to foster the aims of the sector.
