Radical Approaches to Housing
On the 12 and 13 October our portfolio company Agile Homes once again hosted their Radical Housing Conference event in Bristol. The conference explored innovative ways to unlock new and radical models that enable the delivery of properly affordable homes for people in housing need.
There was a fantastic line-up of speakers including Richard Bacon MP, Kate Farrell, Crisis’ Head of Housing Supply Strategy and Rachel Maclean, Minister of State for Housing and Planning, who made the online opening address.
The Venture Studio’s Katrin Busch attended the first day, which focused on community land and finance. Day two discussed the themes of homelessness care and inclusion and resilience.
Homelessness and housing led solutions
On day two, Kate Farrell, Crisis’ Head of Housing Supply Strategy spoke about what drives homelessness, challenges in the housing market and what Crisis is doing to end homelessness.
Some of the housing market challenges include:
- 90,000 social rent homes are needed each year, and we are only building 7,000.
- Access to social housing is limited — only 26% of new social lettings are being accessed by people experiencing homelessness.
- Temporary accommodation placements in England are the highest they have been in 18 years.
She went on to talk about some of the things Crisis is doing to tackle these issues:
- The development of the Joint Venture Letting Agency in partnership with Homes for Good, which will be a new kind of values led agency operating just like a high street letting agency, but with a social purpose that drives its actions
- Our Make History campaign that was launched this year, to persuade all political parties to commit to a national mission to end all forms of homelessness within ten years.
Alternative home ownership
The first keynote speech from Paul Chatterton was on the theme of community. Paul is Professor of Urban Futures at the University of Leeds and part of the Low Impact Living Affordable Community (LILAC) Grove, a housing cooperative in Leeds.
He advocated for all manner of different and radical ways of addressing housing problems. And said that one of the key things that had to be addressed was the instability of that very important thing we call ‘home’ — a place where people could feel safe.
‘Building more houses won’t fix the problem, we need to build different. We need a different building methodology; just committing to bigger and bigger targets won’t solve the problem.’
He talked about housing radicals being all of us. For example, scientists who experiment and trailed new approaches, teachers who empowered local communities through knowledge and entrepreneurs who tried new business models and brought them to the public.
He invited us to consider nature as a non-human stakeholder too. Nature needed to be at the center.
He went on to say that sustainability needed to go beyond carbon footprint and to think more about planetary boundaries. A good example was the One Planet Development from the Welsh Government, which is a forward-thinking planning policy providing a more affordable and sustainable way for people to live and work on their own land, bringing social, economic and environmental benefits.
Linking up local communities
Legal firm Shakespeare Martineau, a B Corporation, have been working with Registered Providers (RPs) for a long time in the affordable housing space, with a specific focus on retirement.
They talked about there being a lack of understanding about the difference between a retirement home and a care home and that perception and stigma play a part.
They suggest a “fully mutual” structure of ownership, which gives security of tenure. And to give people diversity of choice to adapt the space to the needs of households as they change over the course of their life. Building homes in an accessible way (e.g. think through layout of walls) would mean retirement homes aren’t needed.
“We should be building communities for all ages.”
They feel that the UK misses a Retirement Living Act, which both Australia and New Zealand do well. And they advocate that retirement developments should have their own planning class.
Not for profit retirement living
Beki Winter from Housing Justice also mentioned one of the most promising things she’s seen is Housing 21 in Birmingham, a leading, not for profit provider of extra care and retirement living for older people of modest means. They are committed to providing a modern, forward-thinking 21st century service.
This includes updating and modernising their existing housing, as well as developing new and innovative property designs and service models for the future.
They manage over 23,300 properties and are committed to building up to 400 properties a year and acquiring up to 200 new properties and are always on the lookout for partners to work with to achieve this target.
This is an exciting model where people are residents and guests, allowing a different model of delivering housing.
Cohousing model
Richard Bacon gave an example of the architect, Charles Durrett who, with Kathryn McCamant, introduced the concept of cohousing. Cohousing communities are created and managed by the residents and consist of private homes positioned around a common area to facilitate social interaction between neighbours.
Durrett and his team at The Cohousing Company have designed more than 50 cohousing communities in the United States and around the world.
Is there an opportunity for the cohousing model to contribute to the housing crisis?
Planning Policy
Richard Bacon MP gave the land keynote speech. He has served as a Member of Parliament for South Norfolk since 2001.
He advocates that people who need housing (i.e. ‘customers’) should be involved from the very first stages of the housing development process, even as early as site identification, saying that:
- Demand should influence supply, especially given it’s the biggest purchase a person will likely make in their life
- People and the community should be excited by the development, which includes making it accessible and reliable
He gave his own planning policy critique, saying that the five-year plan is not the way to continue doing this. Housing needs to be planned over decades rather than over a shorter time span and shared these suggestions:
- Reduce stamp duty to get people to move out of houses that are too big for them. This could free up properties for families.
- Have special classes of planning permissions at Local Authorities, ensuring that housing for the local community gets prioritised.
In the coming months, we’ll likely see measures to stop wealthy people buying more and more properties and move Local Authorities to focus more on local people and limit outside investment. Could this be too little too late?
Richard’s idea is to have a public fund that helps manage the risk around housing communities, e.g. support households with housing adaptation. This could help to bring cost down as households can adapt their homes to their needs.
Delivering 1000 new affordable homes annually
Tom Renhard, Cabinet Member (Housing Delivery & Homes) at Bristol City Council says that Bristol has ambitions to deliver more affordable housing.
The council have set up Project100: Affordable housing delivery plan 2022 to 2025 — which outlines how the council will focus its land, time, money, and influence to improve the way affordable housing is delivered in Bristol.
Their ambition is to work with partners, local communities and developers to deliver 1000 new affordable homes each year by 2024.
There are challenges however, including finance and the planning system, which requires political buy-in to get the development through, especially if it’s a non-traditional delivery method, like a modular home.
Large organisations doing big things!
Utilising Church land more strategically
Katrin was also really inspired by the talk from Rev Nicola Harris of Bristol Cathedral and Beki Winter from Housing Justice, who want to see sustainable, safe, stable, sociable and satisfying housing.
They presented plans for a housing model that would look at utilising church land more strategically and activate people to engage in housing issues across the country.
The model encompasses three pillars:
- Church Housing Foundation
To activate people to engage in housing issues.
Share case studies as a community.
Best route to entry for SMEs. - Church Housing Association
USP: connection with foundation.
The Northwest of the UK is a major focus for bringing empty homes forward. - Church Development Agency
Provide strategic expertise to dioceses to develop housing.
This new model will cost £12M to implement by the Archbishop. It’s due to start in 2024, if approved.
Community-led housing
Tom Warder, the Community Led Housing Advisor and manager of the Sussex Community Housing Hub says there are approximately 30 projects in the pipeline for community-led housing, the majority through Community Land Trusts (CLTs). One example is Icklesham CLT.
Whilst there is potential for CLT to deliver mixed development including homes at social rent levels, this requires Local Authority support. Phoenix Cohousing Group is a masterplan for a new sustainable community in Lewes, East Sussex, developed in partnership with an architect and the community. It’s still at the pre-planning stage.
Systemic change is needed to make CLTs more viable. In fact, Richard Bacon suggested that Citra Living — established in 2021 as part of Lloyds Banking Group — could be more innovative with their approach, in terms of providing more affordable housing. He felt that change is coming.
Conclusion
The Radical Housing Conference brought together a diverse range of speakers and topics to explore innovative solutions to the housing crisis. The conference highlighted the pressing need for properly affordable homes and addressed various challenges in the housing market, such as the shortage of social rent homes and limited access to social housing for those experiencing homelessness.
Speakers emphasised the importance of community involvement and alternative models of home ownership, such as cohousing and community land trusts. They also discussed the need for long-term planning policies and the involvement of local communities in the development process. As well as a focus on not-for-profit providers and the potential for partnerships between organisations to deliver more affordable housing.
A collaborative and innovative approach is needed to unlock new models and ensure the delivery of affordable homes for those in need.
Here in the award-winning Venture Studio from Crisis, that’s exactly what we do, by investing in a portfolio of startups committed to ending homelessness.
We now want to scale our efforts and support more than 70 founders over the next ten years, building on the impact we’ve had over the last three years.
Thank you!
A big thank you to Agile Homes for pulling together another great conference for the second year in a row. And assembling such an interesting mix of people, who are creating change in the housing space.
References:
The following stats were taken from The Homelessness Monitor: England 2023 by Crisis
- 90,000 social rent homes are needed each year, and we are only building 7,000.
- Access to social housing is limited — only 26% of new social lettings are being accessed by people experiencing homelessness.
- Temporary accommodation placements in England are the highest they have been in 18 years.
