Homelessness charity Crisis has announced plans to become a not-for-profit landlord while the Charity Commission and the Regulator of Social Housing have signed an agreement on shared working.
The Guardian reported yesterday that Crisis was preparing to launch a fundraising appeal in order to buy its own housing stock, with chief executive Matt Downie saying that the charity was no longer able to access enough social housing to support homeless people.
While many private registered providers of social housing are also registered charities, and other voluntary organisations like Mencap previously ran housing associations, it is unusual for a homelessness charity like Crisis to become a landlord.
Today, Downie said in a statement to Civil Society: “From 2026 onwards we will, for the first time in our nearly 60-year history, start the journey to becoming a not-for-profit landlord.
“We’ll begin by buying one-bedroom homes in London and Newcastle to house people experiencing homelessness who are accessing our services.
"Our ambition is that over the next three years we will purchase 100 homes, increasing to at least 1,000 homes over the next decade.
“The reason behind this is simple and clear – you can’t end homelessness without homes. Over the years our frontline services have been finding it harder and harder to find genuinely affordable, settled homes for the people we support, leaving them trapped in a cycle of homelessness.
“The reasons for this are complex and have been years in the making. Decades of policy choices and cuts to funding for welfare, social housing delivery and local authorities has led to a scarcity of homes for people on the lowest incomes.
“The huge demand for social housing means housing associations are having to make increasingly difficult decisions about who they allocate homes to. For the people we support this can mean years on a waiting list, or not even qualifying for the waiting list in the first place.
“At the same time, rapidly rising rents are leaving people on low incomes locked out of the private rented sector. This is exacerbated by the freeze on housing benefit which is driving up homelessness and making it harder for landlords to rent to people on low incomes, many of whom are struggling to cover significant shortfalls in rent.
“At Crisis, we’ve worked productively with landlords for years and have found thousands of good homes for people experiencing homelessness in the private rented sector. However, conditions in the housing market have become so challenging and - with demand for our services on the rise - we need to find a greater supply of genuinely affordable homes.”
‘An important commitment’
Also today, the Regulator of Social Housing and the commission published a memorandum of understanding (MoU), whereby the two bodies agree to work together to carry out their respective functions and responsibilities with the aim of achieving a “collaborative, efficient and effective working relationship”.
David Holdsworth, chief executive of the Charity Commission, said: “This is an important commitment from both of our respective bodies. Charities are a vital part of the social housing sector, helping their beneficiaries access housing which meets their needs.
“By working together within our respective remits, we can help ensure the effective regulation of organisations which are both registered charities and registered social housing providers, including when concerns arise.”
Crisis recently set up a letting agency, Good Place Lettings, to help secure access to private rented housing for its clients.
The charity also published research this week, led by Heriot-Watt University, which showed that almost 300,000 households in England are experiencing the worst forms of homelessness, a 21% increase on 2022 levels.
