New £20m fund to buy up properties for homeless

Hundreds of properties across Greater Manchester will be bought and refurbished to provide a settled home for families and individuals at risk of homelessness.

A new £20m fund announced by social investment firm Resonance aims to tackle ‘alarming’ numbers of people living in temporary or inappropriate accommodation in the North West.

Houses, flats and apartments are purchased through the National Homelessness Property Fund 2 (NHPF2), and leased to housing associations and homelessness charities.

Greater Manchester will get £5m to buy and renovate 50 one and two-bedroom houses, with additional scope to secure another 100 properties in the city-region and surrounding areas.

The initial investment will provide housing for more than 250 people who are living in temporary accommodation, B&Bs or sleeping rough, but the fund will eventually aim to raise up to £100m to support hundreds more in need.

Housing providers will also work with charities to help individuals and families find employment or education and save for a deposit to move into the private rented sector with a track record of maintaining a tenancy.

With over 80,000 people on social housing waiting lists in Greater Manchester, the city-region’s lead on homelessness, Salford mayor Paul Dennett, has welcomed the fund as a ‘timely initiative’.

He said: “The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated an already alarming crisis of housing and homelessness in this country, and its impact will be felt for many months to come. 

“We face a dangerous winter that threatens to push many more people into hardship, and we should be doing all that we can to prevent further housing insecurity.

“We want high quality, truly affordable homes to be available to everyone across Greater Manchester, and the follow-on fund announced today by Resonance is a positive contribution to that goal and towards tackling the housing and homelessness crisis within Greater Manchester.”

The NHPF is the brainchild Resonance and ethical lettings agency Let Us, which is formed of five housing providers including Bolton At Home, ForHousing, Salix Homes, Stockport Homes Group and Wigan council.

It is funded by each of the Greater Manchester councils through the combined authority, along with the regional pension fund and social impact investors Big Society Capital.

The first iteration of the fund, which ran from 2015 to 2018, raised £30m to buy 229 properties for 587 people.

Simon Chisholm, chief investment officer at Resonance, said: “With homelessness on the rise, the need for safe, decent and affordable housing is significant.

“Building on the success of our previous property funds, we are proud to launch the NHPF2, which will initially focus on purchasing affordable homes across the North West.

“This will enable the fund to make a real difference to hundreds of people’s lives across the
region.”

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