Latch: How the project is allowing homeless people in Leeds to find a place to stay and learn new skills

According to James Hartley, the Chief Executive Officer of Latch (Leeds Action to Create Homes), a charity that was set up to try to accommodate some of the city’s homeless people in its many empty properties, houses can be left vacant for a variety of reasons, some of which can be ‘complicated and quite individual’ to the people who own them.

He added: “It makes no sense when there is so much housing need, but sometimes people don’t have the money to prepare a house for sale or have an unrealistic expectation of what it’s worth.”

James, who joined the charity in 1998, originally working as part of a small, hands-on team of just four people, explained: “Latch was set up in 1989 on the back of the large number of empty homes in the city and the homeless population; the idea was to try to solve both problems by refurbishing and letting these empty homes to homeless people.”

He recalls: “I originally trained as a bricklayer but then got bored and went to college so, when the role at Latch came up, it was my dream job because it combined using my building skills with supporting people and delivering social benefit. Back then, we were all on the tools, refurbishing properties, as well as submitting funding bids and offering support to tenants. We had to be all- rounders for a number of years, but these days we all have specialisms.

“In the early days, we were refurbishing two or three properties a year and then we might not acquire another one for a year, but in 2011 we set up a management board and they decided to borrow money against our existing assets, which enabled us to really get the cycle going and Latch has been through exponential growth since then. In the last year alone, we’ve refurbished eight properties. They’re all fully furnished because the assumption is that tenants will come with nothing.”

Today, James leads a team of 21 employees, including the dedicated property development arm, as well as more than 15 volunteers and trainees, who are given work experience opportunities on the refurbishment projects undertaken by Latch, as well as helping out in other areas. Some of the charity’s existing employees were once trainees themselves. Earlier this year, the charity achieved the impressive milestone of handing over the keys to its 100th property and, at any one time, there are typically between 180 and 200 people living in the supported housing that it provides. During the last decade alone, more than 500 people have benefited from the housing and support services on offer.

In keeping with the charity’s goal of providing an all-important stepping stone to tenants by giving them a safe place to stay until they’re ready to make positive change in their lives, around 20 per cent of tenants move on to permanent, long-term accommodation each year.

The Latch team work closely with Leeds City Council and, when accommodation becomes available, it’s usually snapped up very quickly, sometimes within hours, with dozens of people applying for each property.

All of the homes that Latch acquires are managed by its team, who carry out repairs and maintenance work, and fill empty properties as soon as they become vacant.

James explained: “If people are not ready to leave, we let them stay longer. We have both single people and families with children in Latch accommodation, and we support them to address the issues that might have contributed to them becoming homeless in the first place; to break the cycle. Our properties are a means to an end. When we receive applications, we invite people for an assessment to see if they’re suitable because they need to be willing to engage with us.”

He explained that having Band A housing status doesn’t necessarily mean that someone has been sleeping on the streets, adding: “They might be in unsuitable or unsanitary accommodation, fleeing violence, being harassed by a landlord or in overcrowded accommodation. The people you see sleeping on the streets are just the visible part of the problem of homelessness. Some of our tenants might have been sofa surfing between different properties, for example. They’re ultimately the people on the housing waiting list who are in the greatest need.

“Everyone should be able to aspire to having a comfortable, affordable, safe place to live in a property that is decent enough and that they can stay in without being harassed.”

One of Latch’s tenants, a young mum in her early 20s who found herself homeless after leaving a violent relationship, explained: “After splitting up with the father of my young child, I went back to live with my Mum but it was over-crowded so I ended up in a refuge for four months, which wasn’t nice for my child. My mental health wasn’t great in there either. I was applying for private rented accommodation and had never heard of Latch until a support worker mentioned it and helped me with the application. Within three weeks, we were in a house! My child has really come out of his shell and my mental health is so much better since we’ve been here.”

When asked about the support provided to her by Latch, she added: “There’s not much they’ve not helped me with. They have given me a house with everything I need. My worker visits me weekly and has been helping me with things like getting my child into nursery, and getting us registered with a doctor and dentist. In the future, I’m looking to get into the NHS and my worker said they can help me. I want to find a forever home eventually, once I’m ready to go back to living on my own, but first I want to get my child into a routine and then I can get myself into one.”

James is particularly proud of the fact that the organisation is able to offer training and volunteering opportunities to the long-term unemployed to help people acquire new skills and boost their confidence, explaining: “We have trainees working on the refurbishment of the properties for us; they’re often individuals who perhaps wouldn’t thrive in a college or construction environment. Working with us offers them an alternative to the conventional path.”

For James, supporting people like Ben goes hand-in-hand with the other aspects of Latch’s work, as he explained: “Being compassionate and caring for people is essential to what we do, and our work has multiple impacts.

“It’s actually quite a simple thing to take an empty property, let it to someone in need and maximise its potential.”