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 and
Teesdale 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
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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
• 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
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
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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