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Partnership must be at the heart of building the new ‘homes for heroes’
It is time for us to turn our weekly clapping into a lasting legacy which thanks the essential workers that have got us through the crisis. That means social housing, writes Geeta Nanda
The weekly clapping has rightly extended to recognise the incredible efforts of the heroes who are doing all sorts of jobs that have now been recognised as essential in keeping our country going. Yet, we need to ask ourselves how this gratitude can be captured and transformed into something that will last long after lockdown.
For me, that means creating a new generation of ‘homes for heroes’.
We know that for many of these heroes, the often modest pay they receive means homeownership is out of reach. The private rented sector, especially in larger cities, is also both unaffordable and does not allow them to lay down the foundations needed to build a solid future for themselves and their families.
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Housing associations already provide homes for thousands of essential workers. In London, social housing is home to one third of police officers and ambulance staff as well as one third of workers in care-related jobs. Far from the falsehoods of the stigmatising narrative around worklessness, social housing residents have been shown to be the lifeblood of our country during the pandemic.
So, it is time for us all to act together to transform the weekly expression of gratitude our clapping offers into a meaningful legacy that we can all be proud of.
That is why an alliance of housing associations, including the G15 group, offsite manufacturing firms and many others across the property sector, has launched a call to the private, public and charitable sectors to join together to build low-cost ‘homes for heroes’ in order to thank our heroic essential workers who have kept Britain going during the coronavirus outbreak.
“It is time for us all to act together to transform the weekly expression of gratitude our clapping offers into a meaningful legacy we can all be proud of”
The Homes for Heroes programme would see the construction of good-quality affordable homes which are well designed, energy efficient and digitally connected. They should be affordable to heroes on the lowest incomes and include options for essential workers to buy an affordable home of their own.
At MTVH, we have a proud 20-year track-record of building and managing key worker accommodation in partnership with the NHS. Working together we have been able to provide affordable homes that have helped with recruitment and have also allowed the NHS to focus on what it does best: caring for those who are sick.
However, Homes for Heroes needs to go far beyond building homes for key workers as defined before the crisis. Yes, let’s use those existing relationships with bodies such as the NHS, but if we are to truly leave a legacy that recognises the contribution so many have made to sustaining our country in one of its darkest hours, we need to work in new partnerships and support more people.
To work at scale, the efforts of housing associations would need to be supplemented by a large programme of public and corporate giving, innovative use of public land, planning flexibilities, and an expansion in manufacturing capacity to build high-tech homes in factories.
This programme could deliver an initial burst of thousands of homes within months by matching government funding with housing association resources to make completed homes and those under construction available on a low-cost basis for essential workers.
Housing associations are ideally placed to partner with government, councils, employers and house builders. As institutions, we have strong financial covenants and substantial untapped assets. Our sector has a proud record of building new homes and improving people’s lives as well as a deep connection with communities, which helps secure support for new development.
Of course, we don’t have all the answers and will need to work with many others to get to the scale needed. We want to do our best to ensure all our heroes have a safe, secure and affordable home to live in.
Now is the time to work together to keep the thanks our weekly clapping signifies reverberating for many years to come.
Geeta Nanda, chief executive, Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing
