£100million for Empty Property in Co-alition Housing Settlement

“Amid all the gloom and doom surrounding funding for social housing, following the Comprehensive Spending Review, it’s encouraging to see £100 million has been earmarked to bring empty properties back into use” said Jon Fitzmaurice ” It’s not yet clear as to how this is going to be spent, but there’s every indication that there will be money available for Temporary Social Housing Grant. It’s an excellent source of funding for self-help housing organisations wanting to renovate empty publicly and privately owned properties  and once the position is clarified we will pass on this information to the network”. To read the Government’s Housing Settlement document click here.

HCA Empty Homes Debate

“The Homes & Communities Agency (HCA) have published the results of their online debate on how best to maximise the use of empty homes” writes Jon Fitzmaurice, Director, Self-Help-Housing.Org. “It’s very encouraging that the HCA decided to highlight empty property in this way and there were a number of interesting posts in support of local community driven organisations being given direct access to Temporary Social Housing Grant from the HCA. We’re told that the Housing Minister, the Rt. Hon Grant Shapps took a personal interest in the debate and one hopes that this message has got through. Time will tell! The document can be accessed here.”