Major London landlord launches new £75m charitable foundation 

Projects the foundation will support include training residents to become community representatives at Clapham Park in south London, a phone service called Pocket Power that residents can call to receive advice about reducing household bills, and a food bank on the Roundshaw estate in Sutton that supports over 400 families. MTVH said 7.2 million people were living in food insecurity last year, up from 2.5 million the year before.

The 57,000-home association also pointed to a deficit of 1.2 milion new homes over the next decade, 830,000 of which are social rent; 142,000 children are living in temporary accommodation.

Geeta Nanda, chief executive of MTVH, announced she was stepping down from her role after 16 years, to join Crisis, the homelessness charity.

Ms Nanda said the UK’s housing crisis was “one of the greatest challenges of our time”, adding that almost two-thirds of children and working-age adults in poverty live in families where at least one adult works.

“We welcome the early engagement with the government and now ask that they ensure that the resources are in place to deliver the homes, across a full range of tenures, which our nation so desperately needs.

“Of all the challenges I have seen in my 35 years in the housing sector, the breadth of the hardship and poverty we now see across our society is truly unique,” she said.

“The cost of living crisis is not a short-term challenge, but rather a permanent fixture in the lives of millions across our nation.

“We will never give up on our residents or our communities until this is fixed. Our community investment team is delivering extraordinary work to provide support and empowerment to those most in need.

“The Molly Huggins Foundation will help to ramp up this impact, giving us greater access to funds and partnerships which will strengthen our operations and help secure the resources we need,” she added.

Kush Rawal, chair of the Molly Huggins Foundation, said: “We are all too familiar with the hardship which millions of people across the country face due to the cost of living.

“Our community impact teams are faced with these challenges on a daily basis, and the launch of the Molly Huggins Foundation is a timely intervention which will significantly bolster our community-impact activities at a time when they are needed the most.

“The foundation will present new opportunities in terms of fundraising and the formation of new partnerships, to continue investing in and empowering the communities in which we operate for now and the long term.”

MTVH built 892 homes in the past year across London, the East Midlands and South and East of England, and has plans to build another 1,000 over the next 12 months.

Althea Efunshile, chair of MTVH, said: “This is a major milestone for our community investment and will open up a wealth of opportunities to support residents and the communities in which we operate.

“Providing high-quality, affordable homes that give people the chance to live well remains our central mission.

“Through the Molly Huggins Foundation, we will contribute more to support our residents to live the enriching lives they deserve.”