Is your council making use of shared tenancies as a solution to
housing single people or thinking about setting up a scheme to do
so?
Crisis, the national charity for single homeless people, would
like to make contact with councils interested in developing shared
housing as a housing solution for single people, as well as those
with experience of planning or delivering shared tenancies.
Since 2013, Crisis has co-ordinated delivery of a programme to
provide shared tenancies in the private rented sector. More
recently, they've been working with social landlords to support the
development of practice in using shared tenancies in the social
rented sector.
This has demonstrated that shared housing can provide a
practical and cost effective housing solution for single people.
The learning from this work is outlined in a best practice toolkit:
Spare to Share.
Since the toolkit was published last year, the government has
announced the extension of local housing allowance rates, and the
shared accommodation rate, to social housing, and Crisis are now in
the process of updating this toolkit to reflect the changed policy
context and to include recent evidence on sharing from the social
housing sector.
The new version of the toolkit will include more detail on
tailoring housing management and allocations practice for shared
tenancies and will be launched in the New Year. It will make the
case to social landlords to develop provision for shared housing,
both to make best use of stock against the backdrop of welfare
reform and to retain an affordable housing offer to under
35-year-old applicants.
To inform the toolkit update, Crisis is working
closely with a number of social landlords and the relevant
membership bodies to develop detailed guidance on making shared
housing work within a social housing framework.
Crisis is still very much on the hunt for examples of practice -
so if your organisation is delivering a model of
shared housing or would like support in setting one up,
Crisis would like to hear from you.
You can contact Crisis' Shared Housing Best Practice Officer: rebecca.derham@crisis.org.uk.
Crisis would also welcome feedback on the current version of the toolkit.