Landlords fund-raising for the homeless

I'm wondering about the client group(s) we should target. Eg there has been one idea about supporting veterans to get housing or those with mental health problems. Another could be the more intractable rough sleepers - the ones which charities now find it so difficult to help as they don't always want to stay in a hostel. Or it could be another group - like women and their children who have been subjected to attack by their partners - I have read that Women's Aid funding is greatly under threat, which will put women (and sometimes men) and children at risk. Any other thoughts, people, on the category of homeless person we might want to prioritise - at least initially - as we have to start somewhere? That would help us to create a vision of what the charity would look like. I agree with Sam above, that at least initially it would be good to support charities already existing, by enabling them to house more people than they otherwise would. It would also be a chance to network with different people and show them the caring side of landlords. Going down the direct service provision route would be a lot more complex and is more for the long-term - and as landlords we are already very busy providing housing services to 5 million UK households...

I am a registered social worker and landlord. I have over 25 years experience working within mental health and substance misuse clients many of them find themselves homeless but given the right professional support they can and do turn their lives around. I have been working with other investors and local charities in my area to set up a supporting housing scheme using the rent2rent strategy and not for profit. I would be more than willing to offer my support to a much wider venture.

Reply to the comment left by Sam Addison at 29/11/2017 - 23:48
Hi Sam

As a very rough guide, and I mean very rough, the support that we provide to our residents costs about £1000 per resident per year, but that is just for the direct support hours (and expenses), so it does not include all the overheads and back office costs. This £1000 per resident per year figure is only possible because we are already set up, the figures for setting up from scratch may be much higher.

You also need to bear in mind the timescales involved, the setting up of the organisation will take several months, the costing of the service will take several months and involve a massive amount of management time, and getting the costings approved by the local authority (i.e. getting them to decide how much they will pay) could take over a year (our last review of costings was provided to the Council in Sept 2016 and it only started being paid 2 weeks ago, so it took them 14 months to make a decision), so you need to have lots of determination, patience, and the funds available to keep you running the organisation while waiting for the Council to make their mind up.

If setting up a new charity from scratch, you also need to realise that it could be quite an expensive process in itself, e.g. in administration and management, training staff etc, so if you are setting up something new, then it will take quite a long time and require a lot of commitment. However, at the end of the process you will have something that is really worthwhile and genuinely helps many people for years to come.

Reply to the comment left by Steven Tennant at 30/11/2017 - 07:55
Hi Steven

My experience is that this does not work in practice. There are too many confidentiality issues and other matters that mean it is not a good idea to train residents as support workers. In theory it is a good idea to train "promising" residents to do gardening or other basic tasks, but again this does not work in practice as there are complications with their employment status, their welfare benefits (and thus their Housing Benefit), the health and safety risks, etc. By all means you could provide training, or just allow them to do things, but if you start doing this formally or asking them to do it "as a job" (or on your organisation's behalf), then it opens up a massive can of worms and you could end up in a lot of trouble.

Reply to the comment left by Dr Rosalind Beck at 30/11/2017 - 09:41
Hi Ros

One thing I would definitely like to see is a housing charity that actually provides shelter as opposed to propaganda. My preference would be for emergency shelter

As for choosing groups to assist, that's a tough one because everybody has a different outlook. Here's an imaginary example.

It is Xmas Eve and it is snowing. You have one bed left in the hostel and two people are at the front door.

The first is a British born 60 year old man. His story is that he joined the armed forces at the age of 16 and served in the Falklands and both Gulf Wars. He lost a leg whilst serving his country, worked and paid his taxes for his entire life. However, he has just been released from prison, having served his sentence for assaulting a person in a bar fight.

The second is an 18 year Muslim old girl who is 5 months pregnant. Her parents relocated to the UK 8 years ago but have thrown her out of the house for getting pregnant out of wedlock.

Both people have no other family they can turn to.

Who is the most deserving of the room for the night?

Reply to the comment left by Dr Rosalind Beck at 30/11/2017 - 09:41
Hi Ros

In relation to which homeless people should be targeted for assistance by Property118, I would point out that some of the suggested groups already have statutory protection, i.e. the Councils have a statutory duty to provide them with housing, e.g. women with kids fleeing domestic violence, (so even if refuges were to close, the Councils would still have responsibility to provide accommodation).
There are lots of organisations providing help for ex-forces personnel, and this includes help with housing. (more often it is a case of the person not knowing about the help they could access).
If you are going to set up direct service provision, then I would encourage you to be as accessible as possible to all categories of homeless people. Personally I provide for all single people, male or female, of any age, ethnicity, background, etc, and because of the hostels being small and dispersed around the city, there is usually something that suits everyone. If you start targeting particular categories of homeless people, then that excludes others, and then you are leaving yourself open to accusations of discrimination. That said, one of the categories I have trouble housing is couples, because if I allow a couple to have a room in a hostel, then there would be more residents than I am allowed, I can therefore only house couples separately (and this is silly because it takes up two rooms instead of one, which mean there is one less room which could be providing a home for someone), so this is definitely a need that nobody is catering for at the moment.

If you are going to simply donate the funds to another organisation, rather that set up direct provision, then perhaps you could specify that you want the funds to be used for housing homeless couples (or whichever other category you choose). As for which organisations to fund, a good starting point would be to look at the Homeless Link website as they have a directory of homelessness services (it does not list every organisation, as organisations have to pay to be a member (so my organisation is not a member), but it does list a lot of hostels and other organisations that assist the homeless).

Reply to the comment left by at 30/11/2017 - 10:17
Hi Julie

If any of my experience could be of assistance to the scheme you are setting up, please feel free to contact me.

Reply to the comment left by Mark Alexander at 30/11/2017 - 10:53
Hi Mark

Both of these examples would be provided with emergency accommodation by the Council as they would have legal duties towards them under Part VII or the Housing Act 1996 as amended. Thus, ring the Council's out of hours service, get them both accommodated by the Council, and then let the next person at the door have the room (someone whom the Council does not have a legal duty to accommodate).

Fantastic thoughts and idea's I've had this on the back of my mind for some time.
Individually independent landlords make finding and renting property work which the government's and councils cannot do, with our collective skills, knowledge and finance we could make this idea work.
I am willing to donate to this if the money is 100% used to help the homeless have a roof over their heads and not to employ activists or big CE0’s.
I think with donations the charity could purchases dilapidated properties anywhere in the UK and there are lots of them then get help from landlord and their builders. To renovate the houses like (extreme Makeover Home Edition) and house homeless people for a period of time for free (maybe up to one year) whilst they get help to find work or claim benefits.
The rent when it starts can be based on their income or if they cannot work, they can get help to claim benefits to pay for the market rent for the house. With the rental income even if it is small 100% of that goes back into the charity to help others in the same way. So, the tenants are also giving back even if it is in a small way.
We could be the last option for people that do not meet the council's criteria like single people with no kids, the young so on but look at each case as an individual case.
But I do not want to be paying to employ anybody like charity CEO’s for a salary and expenses I would like all the work from top to bottom to me free of charge to the charity. (No salary no Expenses for anybody) just kind people that want to help, and the help offered is free of change and have some system in place to give the people free support with paperwork and red tape via other charities.
Lets make it happen and show landlords are not greedy nasty people, as the narrative from the governments and the press seems to be pushing.

Reply to the comment left by Robert Mellors at 30/11/2017 - 11:10
Thank you Robert, that is very interesting and shows me how naive I actually am to this subject. I suspect many others here would not have known that either.

It is for these reasons we cannot rush into anything and begin collecting money this year. First, we need to know who we can help without providing shelter and who actually needs our help and cannot get it elsewhere. This alone is quite a task and means that it is impossible for every penny raised to go into the provision of shelter.

This is an incredibly eye opening thread for me, and I think we ought to make it the lead article in our weekly roundup newsletter this weekend.