House the Homeless

Scheme to House the Homeless

We know that there is a housing crisis in Britain and I read on the BBC website today that Greater Manchester is starting a scheme to house the homeless and I applaud any attempt made to get people off the streets and into safe, suitable accommodation.

The town is to receive £5m of a larger grant to build or renovate 50 houses which will be used for special tenancies for the homeless via housing associations and homeless charities. That’s a wonderful initiative but sadly just a drop in the huge ocean of demand for properties needed for the most vulnerable and even in the Greater Manchester area there is a waiting list of 800,000 waiting for local authority housing.

Housing Crisis

It just shows how big our housing crisis is and how large the unfulfilled demand numbers are. There is such a lot to be done for the most vulnerable that we will only start to solve the issue if we all work together: local authorities, charities, housing associations and private property investors. As a collective we could help but sadly that collective spirit isn’t always willing and far too often private investors are condemned as greedy and uncaring.

In my experience that’s just not the case and the investors I know are willing to help: to provide suitable accommodation and to protect those who need it most but we could do far more if we were included and embraced within housing strategy groups.

Let’s do it!

You can read that article here