Overview

▪ Housing need in the UK has outstripped supply for several  decades. Just under 290,000 households in England - 54,000 in  London - were owed a homelessness housing duty in 2019/20 

▪ In addition to direct provision, Local Authorities (LA’s) spent circa  £1.2 billion providing temporary accommodation for homeless  households in the financial year 2019/20, an increase of 55%  over the previous five years. Many households end up being  placed outside their home Boroughs. 

▪ Local Housing Allowance (LHA) has failed to keep up with private  rental levels, making it difficult if not impossible for LA’s to place  families in private accommodation in their own Borough 

▪ LA’s have been innovative in developing alternative housing solutions, but with budget pressures and constraints on how they spend, the scale of what they can directly provide has been very limited 

▪ Investment and re-investment in public –private partnerships  demonstrates the viability of alternative approaches, but so far initiatives have been piecemeal and small in scale. ▪ The Ecos Living mission is to help address this housing crisis  through improving the supply of genuinely affordable and high  quality housing offered by LA’s. 

▪ The Ecos Living business model utilises an inflation-linked annual  rental set at central government Local Housing Allowance (LHA)  rates as an assured income which enable institutional  investment in housing. We have partnered with Aviva, and they are keen to continue supporting this proposition subject to planning  and an agreed long-term lease

▪ The Ecos Living model is adaptable for the specific Council to meets its needs and expectations. Our initial focus will be on  sites that can be brought into use by the LA over the short term.  In the longer term we would want to work with the LA to bring  forward its own as well as other local privately owned sites 

▪ This proposal sets out project risks for LA's and how these can be  mitigated. Ecos Living, with its  track record, along with trusted consultants and contractors, can deliver a rolling programme of housing supply to help meet the accommodation need of LA’s