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Homelessness charity eyes move into housebuilding
A homelessness charity is looking into building homes itself after becoming frustrated about the lack of affordable homes near places of work.
Jon Sparkes, chief executive of Crisis, which provides services for single homeless people, confirmed the move today.
Speaking at the annual Chartered Institute of Housing conference in Manchester, Mr Sparkes said the negative impacts of welfare reforms ‘can be avoided if we have the supply of the right kind of houses in the right places’.
Mr Sparkes said Crisis has been successful in Oxford in helping homeless people find work and education, but finds it ‘nearly impossible’ to find housing which is a reasonable distance to where jobs are located. As a result, it is not affordable for people to commute to the places of work.
He said: ‘We are not a house builder or a housing association [but] we are actually doing some modelling work on what we would need to do to start building ourselves in that area.’
