We are celebrating Starts at Home Day 2023 at Peter Bedford Housing Association celebrating the support we offer people to live independent and happy lives and to build thriving communities. We are supporting the National Housing Federation to show how the country can deliver for supported housing and its residents.
We have been providing crucial supported homes for tenants for over 50 years in Northeast London. Our brilliant staff go above and beyond, our safe and secure housing has a positive impact on residents’ lives and the communities who are thriving as a result.
However, we need more supported housing for people and more security for the services we run. Recent research shows that were it not for supported housing, 41,000 more people would be homeless, with a further 30,000 people at risk of homelessness. The Department for Health and Social Care’s White Paper also predicts that demand for supported homes in England will increase by 125,000 by 2030. Despite this, there has been a shortfall in investment in supported housing.
We need a long-term plan for housing. A decent, affordable home should be a right for us all, wherever we live. It is the foundation of our health, happiness and prosperity. In Northeast London, the affordability of housing and the growing numbers of people who are experiencing homelessness is amongst the highest in the country.
This Starts at Home Day, we would like to see a commitment to long-term funding for supported housing, for the government to:
- Ring-fence and increase long-term funding revenue for housing-related support, and ensure it matches, or exceeds, the £1.6bn per year allocated to English authorities in 2010 when funding for supported housing lost its ringfence.
- Commit investment into social housing to make sure residents who move on from supported housing have a safe, affordable place to live.