News from Bolton at Home
Here you'll find our most recent news articles, from important tenant updates and new housing developments, to new community initiatives and activities.
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New £20m fund will Let Us do more to help people at risk of homelessness
We'll be able to help more people at risk of homelessness through a new fund that will buy properties to create quality affordable homes across Greater Manchester. They will be leased to housing providers in the Let Us partnership like us, so we can provide more families and individuals with a settled home and a secure tenancy.
A social impact investment company called Resonance has launched 'National Homelessness Property Fund 2'. It’s received an initial investment of £20 million from the Greater Manchester Penson Fund, Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Big Society Capital, which will help the Let Us partnership.
Let Us is a group of registered housing providers offering ethical lettings agency services to landlords in Greater Manchester. The group includes Bolton at Home, ForHousing, Salix Homes, Stockport Homes Group and Wigan Council, and was set up by the Greater Manchester Housing Providers (GMHP) partnership- which we’re all members of.
The fund will initially focus on purchasing homes in Greater Manchester to help Let Us alleviate the shortage of affordable housing. It works by the fund acquiring properties and leasing them to housing providers and homelessness charities which, in turn, rent to individuals and families at risk of homelessness, with a secure tenancy.
97,000 households in Greater Manchester were waiting for a social home in 2019. Over 26,000 of these households were identified as in priority need for a social rented home. And over 2,000 households in Greater Manchester in temporary accommodation are waiting for a permanent home.
Of course, the housing crisis isn't unique to Greater Manchester. It's a national problem. Shelter, the housing and homelessness charity, estimates that one in every 200 people in the UK are homeless. Over 1m households are on social housing registers and 4.3m households are living in rented properties not meeting the government's Decent Homes Standard. And so the National Homelessness Property Fund 2 aims to grow up to £100m and expand to provide around 870 affordable homes across the UK.
Through the work of our Landlord Services (www.boltonathome.org.uk/landlord-services), and as part of Let Us (www.letusgm.com), we're making more quality private rented homes available for tenants who really need them.
We already manage properties on behalf of many private landlords and also work to improve quality standards in the private rented, improve access to private rented homes at affordable rent levels, and increase the supply of homes across Greater Manchester.
You can read find more information and insight on this funding announcement on the Resonance website here: https://bit.ly/3mU2z66.
Looking to move?
If you'd like to apply for a home with us or another social housing provider in Bolton:
1. Make sure you're registered with Homes for Bolton.
2. You can register, see all available properties and apply for them here: www.homesforbolton.org.uk.
Thank you.