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Explore community-led housing projects, agreements, funding avenues, and relationships in this learning event. Learn about successes, barriers, shared purposes, and the importance of a relationship-driven approach to strengthen communities. Discover the impact of distributed leadership, co-creation, and fostering community strengths to empower neighborhoods.
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Community-Led Housing and the Role of Housing Associations A HACT Learning Event Sally Thomas Head of Community Investment May 2014
North Star Housing Group • Parent company for Endeavour Housing Association andTeesdale Housing Association • 3,200 homes in urban Teesside and rural Teesdale • 630 supported housing units for a wide range of needs • A two-year programme of organisational development and cultural consolidation • Distributed leadership, being local, co-creation • Strong Community Investment activity and ethos • Think big, act small, start now ……
Strengthening communities • Traditional community relationships focus on needs and problems; can reinforce a dependency culture • Need to focus on community strengths: the capacities, skills, intelligence and expertise of people living in neighbourhoods • A relationship-driven, rather than transaction-driven, approach • services are extended rather than communities being funded • community strengths are overlooked • a perception that only outside professionals can help • problems seen as a way of securing funding • targeting intervention on individuals rather than communities
Community-Led Housing Projects • Housing Co-ops Langridge and Norton Grange – 92 units - development and management / repairs • Community-based housing Darlington HA, 4 Quaker Societies / charitable trusts – 265 units – management / repairs • Community-owned housing Middlesbrough CLT – 5 units - management / repairs • Empty Homes Programme Five Lamps – 4 units - management / repairs
Elements • Agreements and contracts – tailored templates • Funding – sew and grow, earned income • Services – enabling, development, management, maintenance • Locking in community interest – asset development • Relationships – long-term
Gresham, Middlesborough Study the past if you would define the future • Post-industrial decline • Housing Market Renewal • Controversy and confrontation • Strong social networks / value base
It takes a community to make a community…… • From Communities Under Threat to Community Land Trust • Asset transfer of three houses for £3 • Local lettings at affordable rent • Added values – social and economic • voluntary effort / sweat equity • community construction team • local spend / community-led regeneration
Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much • The residents of Gresham • North Star Housing Group • Middlesbrough Council • Community Campus • HCA, HACT, Isos, Jon Fitzmaurice
To lead the people; walk behind them • Community leadership • Relationships not transactions • The collective economy / the social community • Letting go and giving up; small is beautiful • Next steps: more EHs, new-build,Neighbourhood Planning, Social Enterprises in Lettings and Repairs / Voids)
Successes and barriers • Shared purpose and ethos – mutual benefits • Making unequal partnerships work; working with difference • A geographical / neighbourhood / practical focus • Community-led delivery model; a focus on assets • Money – diverse and flexible, income streams • Developing whole organisational understanding • Institutional barriers