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Leeds Empties - the inside story

Submitted by Rob Greenland on 8 April, 2013 - 12:46
George Clarke talks to one of the Conference delegates

The thinking behind the approach we’re developing through Leeds Empties is that complex social problems – such as bringing back into use long-term empty homes – require a range of creative solutions.  You’ll all know that as empty homes practitioners.  To make real progress, we need a range of different interventions, each helping to make progress on a particular aspect of the problem at hand. 

Our background isn’t in empty homes.  Over the last few years we’ve offered support to people setting up and running social enterprises – and in 2012 we decided to change how we worked to focus on one social issue at a time – rather than working with lots of different people tackling a wide range of problems.  The issue we picked – thanks to Channel 4’s Property Scandal  appearing on our screens - was how to bring back into use more of Leeds’ 5000 long-term empty homes.

Leeds Empties started with a “Call To Action”  an event designed to gather together as many people as possible who were interested in tackling the empty homes issue.  We struck lucky as George Clarke agreed to come along – with a Property Scandal film-crew in tow. 

We were soon sold out – and more than 100 people spent the day exploring ways to bring more empties back into use – whilst more than 20 local businesses pledged support in a “Pledge-A-Thon” hosted by George.  Leeds Empties was lead story on local TV news all day.  We’d achieved what we’d wanted – to raise awareness and to involve a wide range of people in exploring how to bring more empty homes back into use.

But where should we go from there?   It’s one thing getting people together for a fun day exploring exciting ideas – but how could we make that work in the longer-term?  With a £10,000 grant from Leeds City Council we piloted a few of the ideas that had been explored at the Call To Action and came up with six main areas of work that we’d like to concentrate on over the next twelve months:

  • Empty Homes Doctor– one-to-one support for owners of empty homes to help them to bring their home back into use
  • Green Empties– exploring how to attract investment into green refurbishment of empty homes
  • Support for social ventures– getting behind new and existing social enterprises and self-help schemes which bring empty homes back into use
  • Empties Investment– exploring community share issues, Bonds and other forms of social investment to increase the number of homes brought back into use
  • Jobs, Training and Apprenticeships– ensuring we make the most of the opportunities offered by empty homes renovation
  • Ongoing marketing and engagement– continuing to engage a wide range of people in Leeds Empties so that we can bring more empty homes back into use.

We explored these themes during Leeds Empties Week  in March 2013.  More than 150 people attended a range of events – from a tour of two empty properties which are undergoing a deep-green retrofit – through to a launch event for our Empty Homes Doctor service . 

We think there’s lots of potential in the approach – but it’s the Empty Homes Doctor service that excites us most.  More than 40 owners of empty homes got in touch during Leeds Empties Week to ask for our help. 

We know as well as you do that there are many complex reasons why homes are empty – and we’re not pretending we have easy solutions.  However, by taking a person-centred approach – trying to work out what the owner wants to see happen – whilst understanding the reasons their home is empty – we hope we’ll be able to help a good number of people bring their homes back into use.  We’ll let you know more about this as the service develops over the coming months.

And what does the Council think of Leeds Empties?  It would be easy for a Local Authority to refuse to engage with us – to pretend that everything is in hand.  Fortunately – partly, I imagine, due to the straightened times in which we find ourselves – Leeds City Council has been very open to finding different ways to encourage more owners to bring their homes back into use.

The Council recognises that there are things that we can perhaps do better than they can – such as engaging local businesses and local community organisations.  And we’re very clear that the Council’s empty homes team remain central to how we tackle empty homes in Leeds.  The trick is to work out how we can add to what they already do – so that, ultimately, more empty home owners are in a position to bring their home back into use.   We aim to get into the detail of that over the next twelve months.  We’ll let you know how we get on.

Rob Greenland is Co-director of Social Business Brokers – the social enterprise behind Leeds Empties.  He'll be talking about the Leeds Empties initiative at The Empty Homes Conference on May 21st in Birmingham.

More information about Leeds Empties is available at http://www.leedsempties.org.uk/ and on Twitter at @LeedsEmpties. 

Picture: George Clarke talks to a delegate at the Call-to-Action event. 

Picture Credit:  Thanks to Folkus Point CIC

Hyndburn and Haslingden MP Jones and David Ireland cross swords over demolitions

Submitted by David Gibbens on 16 December, 2012 - 19:10
Graham Jones Blog

Graham Jones, Labour MP for Haslingden and Hyndburn and David Ireland of the Empty Homes Agency have engaged in an interesting debate about demolitions in Jones's blog.  Jones makes a robust defence of the need for demolitions in his constituency while Ireland quotes statistics about the size of local housing waiting lists in defence of the need to retain empty homes and bring them back into occupation.

One of the virtues of Jones' reply is that he starts to deconstruct what housing waiting list figures actually mean in practice, in particular that they reflect people's needs for better housing at affordable rents rather than  the need for any old housing at any price.  But David Ireland's reply to these points has yet to appear (if it ever will) so this is not necessarily the end of the argument on that aspect of the debate. [Update: David Ireland was not able to reply on Graham Jones's blog but did reply on his own blog as reported in a comment attached to this story]

David Ireland's reply doesn't appear to concede any ground on the need to demolish homes at all in the current housing market, even in the extreme circumstances of Hyndburn.  This is a fairly significant hardening of the EHA's position over the years since Jonathan Ellis's tenure as Chief Executive. [Update: see David's comment below on this issue]

Graham Jones hasn't so far addressed one of Ireland's main complaints ie that the Market Renewal exercise itself contributed significantly to the issues of abandonment and market decline by blighting the areas targeted for renewal.  However, the continuing problems of area decline are certainly strongly related to the abrupt termination of the Pathfinder funding.  The merit of the arguments for and against will eventually become clearer when the dust settles and we discover whether sustained attempts to reinvigorate the housing markets in the areas affected are successful or not.

The debate can be found here.  For fuller details about the HMR Pathfinder programme refer to the link to the Commons Note in our library here or refer to all the related materials by searching using the relevant tag.

Also featured on Jone's blog is a long and interesting letter from the Chair of a Liverpool Welsh Streets Residents' Association which airs the seldom-reported perspective of residents who have welcomed the Market Renewal outcomes (where they have been achieved!).

NB this article should not be taken as promoting one view over another - if you are interested visit the blog and draw your own conclusions.

London Rebuilding Society launches empty homes scheme

Submitted by David Gibbens on 16 December, 2012 - 18:01
London Rebuilding Society web-page

The London Rebuilding Society has launched a new scheme to help bring empty homes in London back into use, drawing on their experience with Home Improvement projects.

Few details of the scheme are available on their website but contact details are provided and the site states:

LRS' new empty homes scheme will give the owners of empty homes the opportunity to bring their property back into use and for local authorities to offer top spec accommodation to those waiting on social housing lists.

Following a successful launch we are now welcoming enquiries from Homeowners, Housing Associations, Social Landlords and Local Councils.

London Rebuilding Society specialise in innovative small-scale finance models.  According to their website

London Rebuilding Society is a social enterprise that specialises in creating innovative forms of finance which benefit local communities and the environment.

You can find out more about the scheme here and more about the organisation by downloading a pdf file of their latest annual report.

South Tyneside celebrates "EDMO Day" in style

Submitted by David Gibbens on 17 November, 2012 - 12:48

On the day that the government's statutory instrument to make it harder for local authorities to obtain Empty Dwelling Management Orders came into force, it was reported that South Tyneside Council had secured 11 EDMOs at a single hearing of the Residential Property Tribunal.  The homes will be refurbished with finance in part from the government's £100million empty homes fund.

More details can be found on the South Tyneside website here and in the Shields Gazette here.

South Tynside's Keith Shields won the Grafton Empty Homes Practitioner of the Year Award at the Empty Homes Network National Empty Homes Conference in May 2012 in large part because of his work in developing the scheme to bring these properties back into use.

 

Huddersfield Fresh Horizons scheme featured on BBC

Submitted by David Gibbens on 16 November, 2012 - 17:45

BBC breakfast time on the 14th November featured a Fresh Horizons scheme in Huddersfield, funded out of the government's £100million empty homes pot.  The scheme aims to bring 65 homes back into use.

The video is accessible from here. 

You can find out more about Fresh Horizons (a Huddersfield-based social enterprise) here.

New Sqatters Legislation

Submitted by IFraser on 24 September, 2012 - 16:51

St Helens Council in conjunction with Merseyside police are among the first to implement this new Legislation.

Just two days after the legislation was introduced, Neighbourhood Police Officers from St Helens, working with the council's Private Sector Landlord and Tenant Liaison Officer, successfully removed a man who had been involved in anti-social behaviour while squatting at a privately rented address in the area.

 

 

Stoke £1 home scheme gets go-ahead

Submitted by David Gibbens on 5 September, 2012 - 10:11

The Stoke-on-Trent proposal to sell surplus houses to low-paid working people for £1 has now been given the go-ahead by the Council's Cabinet.  The proposed scheme has been widely reported as an example of innovative thinking around empty homes.

The homes were originally purchased under the previous government's Market Renewal programme but the council was unable to progress the redevelopment schemes when the incoming Coalition government cut the funding.  The cost of purchasing the homes to be sold for £1 has not been made public to date.

The scheme involves the purchasers taking out an interest-free loan of up to £30,000 to renovate the homes to Decent Homes Standard and received just under £1.5Million from the HCA Clusters of Empties programme - match-funded by Stoke-on-Trent City Council.

Fuller details of the scheme can be found in the relevant Cabinet report which can be accessed via our Information Library here (for full members only - log in to access this).

Interview with Adam Cliff, Peterborough Empty Homes Officer

Submitted by David Gibbens on 31 August, 2012 - 16:59
Adam Cliff

Charity Hope Into Action has interviewd Peterborough City Council's Empty Homes Officer Adam Cliff about his work and you can see the video on their website here.

Hope Into Action are based in the Cambridge/Peterborough area and specialise in housing and support for ex-offenders and other vulnerable peole.  Their website states they have recently won grant to enable two empty homes to be brought back into use.

How they do it in Minneapolis

Submitted by David Gibbens on 9 August, 2012 - 09:23
Minneapolis StarTribune story

It's sometimes interesting to see what goes on in other parts of the world around empty homes. 

The story reported in the Minneapolis StarTribune shows that the UK's forthcoming empty homes premium is not draconian by some standards.....And some US politicians seem to be more outspoken than ours on the issue.

Housing Action charity goes into liquidation

Submitted by David Gibbens on 17 April, 2012 - 16:12

Housing Action, a charity offering leasing schemes in Suffolk and Nofolk, has had to go into liquidation following reductions in its grant funding, according to a story reported in the Norwich Evening News.

Unsettling for landlords, councils and tenants alike the story shows the difficulties attendant on running leasing schemes without adequate gap funding. Jim Overbury, the Chief Executive, had been energetically pursuing further business in London at least, promoting the benefits of an all-in package for local authorities and landlords alike. The charity, currently said to be managing over 300 homes, was aiming for 650 by the end of next year. 

The charity was still solvent but the trustees felt that the risks associated with continuing operations were too great.  A joint statement from the liguidators and the charity is reported to have said:

The trustees sought appropriate advice and came to the conclusion that while the charity was not insolvent, the risks associated with trying to continue as a going concern were too great.