As Croydon’s population continues to boom, and the effects of the new benefit caps take hold, Croydon’s housing crisis looks to be getting worse, however, a new Community Interest Company is aiming to help secure more homes for local people, ensuring they aren’t forced out of the local area and help the regeneration of Croydon.

It is well known that there is a chronic shortage of homes in Croydon, leaving people who need to be provided with accommodation being forced to move miles away from family, friends, support networks and their community, yet OUR Croydon have found that hundreds of empty homes, sit totally unused in the local area.

OUR Croydon have just secured a grant to provide renovation work to bring these empty homes up to standard and to rent them back out at affordable rates, to people who need them most.

Laura Mumford, Project Co-ordinator, says, “Many properties in Croydon have sat unused for years, because the landlords don’t have the cash to bring them up to the strict housing standards that now exist. Sometimes properties have been inherited in a bad state and people just don’t know what to do with them, but these grants mean landlords can get up to £25,000 worth of renovation work done for free, so long as they’ll rent the property out at affordable rents to those most in need in our community.”

Local Croydon businessman, Paul Funnell, who has lived in Croydon all his life, and run a business here for 22 years, ran a pilot of the Empty Homes project with Croydon council last year, renovating 4 houses for local people. Paul says, “This new project is a fantastic opportunity to work with lots of local organisations in the community and provides housing and jobs for local people. We’re working closely with Crisis to offer work placements, and with Croydon College to offer apprenticeships.” The project will also provide jobs for local skilled people.

Over the next year, OUR Croydon will bring at least 22 empty homes in Croydon back into use for social housing, and are keen to hear from interested landlords.

The project was described as an “excellent example of how social enterprise can create a virtuous circle where everyone wins” by the OUR Croydon Director Richard Lanning. “Landlords will receive £25,000 in free renovation works which in turn provides employment and training to people, new affordable homes to those who need it most and all at a saving to the exchequer. It is a fantastic project to be involved in.”

Based on information supplied by Laura Mumford.