15 minutes with… David Bogle, chair of Homes for Cathy

You have been campaigning to give the English Regulator for Social Housing more powers around homelessness. How is that going?

There’s a big focus on tenant engagement and involvement through the social housing regulator. We’re worried that in order to boost your ratings for your tenants, the easiest thing is to take people who are easy to manage, rather than homeless people who may have multiple issues.

In concentrating on what tenants want, you forget about what the people who haven’t yet got a tenancy want because they’re homeless.

We tried to get an amendment in the Social Housing Regulation Bill through the Lords, but it was turned down. But we haven’t given up yet. We’ve got a meeting with the regulator later this month, with [homelessness charity] Crisis helping us.

How do we get homelessness up the political agenda for the next general election?

The Department [of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities] seems to want to focus on the tenancy side of things, rather than homelessness. [Housing secretary] Michael Gove doesn’t seem all that interested, and there’s no great signs of Labour doing anything on homelessness.

My latest idea is we should have a rally in Parliament Square – a day of action. I’m not saying block the M25 or anything, but we ought to do something to raise the profile.

I don’t know how many votes there are in homelessness. A lot of homeless people won’t be registered to vote.

However, Shelter, Crisis and a lot of charities, they can raise lots of money for homelessness. So, somehow, there’s public support. It just dissipates when it gets to a central government level, unless you have a minister who takes a particular interest.

You are considering charging a membership fee to fund Homes For Cathy. What would that enable you to do?

We hope it would put things on a more professional, structured basis. Then maybe we can do research projects, maybe we could have someone devoted to the membership, someone devoted to PR and marketing. We had some regional workshops before COVID and they were very successful.

One day we might even have a director or chief executive of Homes For Cathy, to evolve a bit like PlaceShapers has evolved, but without charging a membership fee that ends up being prohibitive.

We’re also thinking if we ask a few chief executives of bigger associations on to the board, they’ll be a figurehead and we’ll raise the profile of Homes for Cathy.

Some of the founding members of Homes For Cathy have now retired. Will you keep going?

I think so. There’s a lot to do. You hope you can make a difference. But I never thought Tony Stacey [former chief executive of South Yorkshire Housing Association] would ever retire!