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Manchester Housing First consortium wants more landlords to join
Greater Manchester’s Housing First consortium is looking for more landlords – social and private – to join, the housing association leading the programme has said.
Housing association Great Places, which was picked to lead the programme last week, is looking for more landlords to agree to provide homes for rough sleepers.
In an interview with Inside Housing, Matthew Harrison, chief executive at Great Places, said: “Great Places is leading the consortium but we recognise that we need more organisations involved in the project if we’re going to rehouse 400 people over the next three years, which is the target.”
Housing First is a strategy aimed at helping rough sleepers. It involves immediately moving rough sleepers into their own accommodation and then building services around that, rather than progressing them through emergency shelters and temporary accommodation.
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The 19,000-home landlord holds the lead role in the project’s steering group, meaning it is responsible for bringing new partners into the consortium, providing oversight on quality and assurance, managing finance and leading on communications and performance management.
Already in the project are housing associations: Riverside, Regenda Homes, Jigsaw Homes and Stockport Homes, as well as the other organisations such as Greater Manchester Mental Health, the Bond Board and One Manchester.
Mr Harrison told Inside Housing: “The plan for this particular project is a split between existing social housing and some from the private sector as well. We’ll be working with other landlords in Greater Manchester as well to try to get them to commit to give us access to a small portion of their accommodation.”
According to him, the current plan is for 60% of the 400 homes to come from existing social housing and 40% from private rented accommodation.
The Manchester pilot is one of three in England, with the West Midlands and Liverpool also managing pilot Housing First programmes.
Greater Manchester is the first of these three regions to pick an organisation to take the lead role in delivering Housing First.
As well as housing, a key part of Housing First is providing other services after the accommodation has been provided.
Mr Harrison explained: “The Project Steering Group will ensure that there is a network of organisations providing that support. That might be housing associations, might be the voluntary sector, might be the NHS.”
Homes for Cathy conference
Homes for Cathy is joining forces with Inside Housing and the Chartered Institute of Housing to deliver its second annual conference.
The conference will bring together sector leaders, practitioners and real examples of the work being done to end homelessness.
Homes for Cathy members will present and feed back on progress made in delivering the nine Homes for Cathy commitments.
Homes for Cathy is a group of housing associations formed in the Cathy Come Home era, that came together in 2016 to mark the 50th anniversary of Cathy Come Home and to highlight the continuing needs of homeless people.
The event takes place at 28 Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3LS on 25 March from 9am until 5pm.
Speakers include:
Terrie Alafat CBE, chief executive, CIH
David Bogle, chief executive, Hightown Housing Association
Steve Douglas, chair, One Housing Group
Helen Evans, chief executive, Network Homes
Chris Hancock, head of housing, Crisis
Lord Kerslake, chair, Peabody
Tracey Lees, chief executive, Wandle
Michael Newey, chief executive, Broadlands
Jon Sparkes, chief executive, Crisis
Tony Stacey, chief executive, South Yorkshire Housing
Jeremy Swain, head of the rough sleeping initiative team, MHCLG
For more information about the event click here.
