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Mark BaigentTackling homelessness through modular housing
A modular housing collaboration has been set up to provide higher-quality temporary accommodation for homeless families in London. Mark Baigent explains more
London’s homelessness problem, which has deepened significantly over recent years, is well known. Tackling this problem requires action from national government through its key housing and welfare policy, but also more innovation and collaboration at a local level to develop new solutions to provide accomodation for homeless households.
One way in which local authorities in London are getting together to innovate is through a new collaborative programme, Place (Pan-London Accommodation Collaborative Enterprise).
Place’s mission is to provide more high-quality temporary accommodation for families that are homeless – displacing poorer quality and more expensive forms of accommodation that can be so damaging for families and their children.
“Place’s homes will be used as temporary accommodation and will have the quality of permanent homes.”
This will be achieved through modular housing construction and the opportunities presented by the many ‘meanwhile’ sites that exist across Greater London.
These are sites which have been identified for future use, such as a transport project, but which can’t be realised presently.
Place’s homes will be used as temporary accommodation, and will have the quality of permanent homes, meeting the London space standards, and can also be moved from one site to another as required.
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Place is being taken forward by the London Housing Directors’ Group and is supported by London Councils and the Greater London Authority through the provision of £11m of grant funding from its Innovation Fund.
The project has also received seed funding from London Councils’ Capital Ambition programme, which enabled much of the development work for this project.
I am proud that Tower Hamlets Council has taken the leading role in developing this programme, which is supported by 17 other London councils that have been involved in its working group.
The programme has an initial target of delivering 200 new family size homes across London, with an ambition to increase this by investing all surplus income into delivering more new homes. The aims of the programme are:
- To increase the supply of good-quality family size accommodation
- Provide lower-cost, better-quality options for households in temporary accommodation
- Deliver new homes on sites which would otherwise remain dormant in the short or long term
It will deliver two and three-bedroom properties, which have been identified by the boroughs as the greatest need for homeless households, and will take families out of overcrowded and inappropriate temporary accommodation placements.
“We believe this project will be the first of its kind”
Boroughs participating in Place will produce savings on their temporary accommodation expenditure and provide better-quality accommodation that improves outcomes for homeless households.
We believe this project will be the first of its kind – demonstrating local government’s ability to innovate and collaborate to create solutions to the challenge of housing Londoners in the greatest need.
The tendering process has begun and the deadline for submissions to the invitation to tender was 15 August. The first site will be delivered in autumn 2019.
Through working together to develop and deliver new ideas, local government can take steps towards providing more opportunities and better accommodation for households that have become homeless.
Mark Baigent, director, Place; chair, London Housing Directors’ Group and interim divisional director for housing and regeneration, Tower Hamlets Council
