Housing

LankellyChase has launched the first thoroughgoing profile of severe and multiple disadvantage in England. It shouldn’t be news to many that people experiencing severe social harms such as homelessness, offending or drug misuse mostly face a much wider set of problems. And yet, until recently, it has been remarkably difficult for the homeless, offending or drug misuse systems, both statutory and voluntary, to acknowledge the degree of overlap between their ‘populations’.

A new era of housing organisations is coming up from the streets, taking over empty properties and helping re-build communities, as Jon Fitzmaurice explains.

Many people have now forgotten that quite a few of today’s largest housing associations had very modest beginnings and were often the creation of local activists. For instance, huge organisations like Paragon, Midland Heart, Genesis, Notting Hill and Hyde all started off as very small scale initiatives, driven by groups of people simply getting hold of a few empty street properties.