Homes for Cathy - our commitments 2024

Commitment 1: To contribute to the development and execution of the homelessness strategies of local and combined authorities.

We input into the development of homelessness and allocation strategies, where invited to do so, by local councils in our core operating areas.

We offer almost all of our homes to Local Council nominees, and as those at the top of local authority waiting lists are those most in need, a significant proportion will be those who are homeless and in temporary accommodation. 

Commitment 2: To work with stakeholders and people with lived experience of homelessness to provide a range of affordable housing and services which meet the needs of homeless people in their local communities.

We have a strong track record in providing new affordable homes in London and Hertfordshire. We currently expect to build 1,100 new homes by 2028 with 90% planned to be affordable and over 60% of these for social rent. Feedback from our customers informs future design.

We form partnerships with other organisations on the ‘front line’ of working with homeless and street homeless people.

The Lodge, in Camden, is a hotel style hostel run by St Mungo’s in an Origin building. They only take referrals from street outreach teams working with rough sleepers. This provides up to two years stability, (and sometimes longer), for entrenched rough sleepers with low support needs. The service accepts people with dogs and no local connection is required.

Under the Rough Sleepers Initiative, we provide 41 self-contained homes in our general needs housing where we undertake the housing management service and St Mungo’s provide floating support. 

New Horizon, a young people’s advice centre, aims to tackle youth homelessness and transform the lives of young people. Working with young people, many of whom were formerly sleeping rough, they expanded into offering accommodation through innovative partnerships with housing providers. Working with Origin they offer 15 accommodation-based placements in Camden and Barnet. Origin provide housing management and New Horizon provide support for young people to live independently, access education, training and work opportunities, managemental health support needs and secure long-term housing.

Enfield Single Housing (ESH) provides just over 300 homes for single homeless people, some with additional support needs, who struggle with lack of eligibility for statutory housing. We take 100% direct referrals from single adults with no place to live, with priority given to those who are genuinely homeless but currently in employment, training or education. Many are moving on from their family home, or from staying with friends and relatives, most having exhausted the good will of friends and family where they have been ‘sofa surfing’.

Increasingly, we are attracting people in their 50’s and 60’s into our retirement housing who would otherwise be at a high risk of homelessness, having no access to other social housing and not being able to afford, or access, private rented accommodation due to high deposit levels and local housing allowances. In the last 2.5 years 69% of all lettings were to be people with this age profile with 45% stating they had been living in some form of temporary accommodation. 

Commitment 3: To operate flexible allocations and eligibility policies which allow individual applicants’ unique set of circumstances and housing history to be considered and to monitor acceptances and refusals and benchmark performance.

We aim to ensure from the outset that tenancies are not set up to fail. In 2023/24 our Financial Support Officers undertook 169 pre-tenancy Affordability Assessments.

This includes an income maximisation and income and expenditure assessment. For those people who did not meet the affordability criteria our Lettings Agents referred them back to the local authority to seek more affordable offers. 

We also monitor/record: 

• The number of evictions and the reasons these occurred.
• The reasons for refusals.
• Tenancy sustainment interventions – through financial support, such as grants, benefit maximisation and Support Hub actions.

We will continue to look at how we can capture further information to support this commitment.

Commitment 4: To work with local authorities and others to understand and remove the barriers that disadvantage some applicants with a background of homelessness, including people from ethnic minorities, the LGBTQ+ community and migrants, from accessing Housing Association properties.

St Mungo estimates that in London, 48% of individuals who are rough sleeping are migrants. At our Pathway Service in Camden, with 58 placements for ‘looked after’ young people, 72% of the residents we house are unaccompanied young people, arriving as asylum seekers, with a serious risk of becoming homeless without help. We support them to sort out their immigration status, alongside managing a home and finding routes into learning, training and employment.  

Our ESH service works with a diverse group of people, where we offer a dedicated Assessment and Support Officer who helps break down the barriers to opportunity by providing a service over and above intensive housing management, referring people to statutory and specialist services, local community groups and offering direct help in dealing with complex issues.    

 
Commitment 5: To offer support to maintain 'at risk' tenancies and to not make homeless any tenant who is engaging with the landlord.

Referrals are made to our Financial Support Team by our Income Team and Neighbourhood Managers where tenancies may be ‘at risk’ due to rent arrears. The services they offer are:  

• Help managing money
• Arranging payment plans 
• Debt prioritisation
• Access to unclaimed benefits and income maximisation 
• Referrals to our Employment and Training advice service, if someone is looking for work

In 2023-24 our Financial Support Team:

• Helped 130 residents & their families by providing shopping vouchers under the Hardship Fund.
• Completed 28 Debt & Benefit referrals sessions.
• Applied for 172 Alternative Payment Arrangements for direct payments from Universal Credit.
• Completed 131 six week settling in checks with new tenants. 

Origin’s Support Hub provides additional support to households, helping people with a range of issues including social isolation, mental health challenges, self-neglect, financial problems and complex hoarding. Over the past year the support hub has helped over 260 households. These issues can lead to tenancies being ‘at risk’ and the Team are proud of the work they have done to sustain people in their tenancies. Some of the reasons for referral to the service are:

• Financial Advice and Support - 14%
• Hoarding - 9%  
• Mental Health Challenges – 40%
• Transfer to Specialist Housing – 4%

Commitment 6: To support new tenants who were homeless to access the essential items they need.

We provide furnished accommodation to residents of ESH and youth homelessness projects. We are looking at the feasibility to do more in our retirement housing given the changing demographic and people moving in from temporary accommodation with few possessions. 

For new residents, to our general needs housing, our lettings agents can offer access to a Friends of Origin grant at sign up where needed. This organisation supports Origin to help new and existing residents in hardship with grants for home furnishings or equipment. Our Housing Managers can also refer current residents for a grant towards home furnishing or white goods where they are struggling to replace items in their home. In 2023/24 we gave out £25,000 in grants. 

Commitment 7: To lobby, challenge and inspire others to work to end homelessness.

We will publish a year-end report on what we do to directly address homelessness and the alignment with the Homes for Cathy Commitments.

Last year 136,000 young people approached their council as homeless, which is why, along with 120 other charities, New Horizon Youth Centre launched a Government petition to ensure the issue is debated in Parliament. We have been supporting New Horizon Youth Centre by promoting the campaign on our website and through social media.