Cross-city partnership providing settled futures for homeless people

Published: 23 September 2020

Throughout August and September South Liverpool Homes (SLH) has been proudly supporting the National Housing Federation ‘Homes at the Heart’ campaign.

The campaign has featured targetted weeks of action, with topics including climate change, supported housing and employment and skills.

This week’s focus is ‘settled futures’, looking at what housing associations and other organisations around the country are doing to help homeless people and those at risk of homelessness.

Kerry and her daughter were one of the 28 individuals and families rehoused so far by SLH as part of a joint-working project between Liverpool City Council and housing associations across the Liverpool City Region. In total to date, the project has been provided with 648 homes across the city, with 235 people having signed tenancy agreements and taken their first steps towards a more settled future.

Prior to SLH’s intervention, the family’s housing journey had gone from bad to worse. Conditions in a privately rented home were so bad, due to disrepair and neighbourhood issues, that Kerry and her daughter were forced to leave. There followed a period of sofa surfing with friends – a nightmare situation for any parent. 2020 came and as the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the family were pinged from hotel room to hotel room before SLH’s team intervened and offered her a vacant three-bedroom home with a garden in Speke, complete with white goods and furniture.

Kerry said: “Having stayed in two friend’s houses, which were not suitable for my daughter, and then in four hotel rooms, when I came to view this I felt like I had gone to heaven.

“It’s just perfection - a perfect house that I can now make our home.

“I can’t thank you enough - I now have everything I need.”