London CLT
- Following a lot of campaigning efforts, Croydon Citizens received a verbal promise to support and move forward with community led housing in Croydon from council chamber. The promise included that the council will put five sites out to tender. London CLT hope this provides both opportunity for London CLT and other groups to build more community led homes.
- E16/PEACH CLT produced a video talking about their group and campaign. Have a look on Youtube.
- Mayor of London Sadiq Khan unveiled a new £38million pot of cash for community led housing projects, enabling Londoners to apply for a grant or loan to support building, development and delivery of new properties. A key part of this which London CLT has been involved in campaigning for was the £10million revolving loan fund, to ensure continued/long term support for CLTs in london. Click here for more information.
- London CLT hosted University of Reading architecture students at the completed St Clements site and the planning site at Shadwell. Hopefully these young students will be inspired all the way into the workplace when thinking about how housing should be provided.
FMDV
- In January the FMDV organised a webinar presenting the conclusions on its mapping of available CLT finance sources. CLT and OFS professionals, funders and groups attended and got a general picture of CLT finance in Europe and the webinar raised awareness on the barriers to be overcome.
- The FMDV met social services European federations (EASPD, Housing Europe, FEANSTA) along with CLT Brussels and CLT Ghent in Brussels, in order to discuss and engage on their strategy towards the financing social infrastructures at the European level. At the same time, the FMDV has been speaking with partners such as Unites Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) and the RTES to raise awareness about the transnational conference being held in London in May.
In the coming month the FMDV has been planning to attend the following events:
- On February 12th: Meeting with the Housing Department of the City of Paris in order to discuss their OFS financial perspectives
- On February 20th: Meeting with Secours Catholique in order to raise the opportunities of implementing OFS for the most deprived.
Community Land Trust Brussels (CLTB)
- CLTB took part on 29 January into a reflection on how to refurbish the Duchehof” garden city neighbourhood in Vilvoorde, a Flemish town right next to Brussels. Discussions focused on finding an ownership model that can support the refurbishment of individual properties while keeping their heritage value.
- CLTB spoke at “Who Owns Brussels?”, a conference organised by the Brussels Coalition for the Right to Housing on 30 January. The Conference included speakers from across Europe (including the StART CLT project in London) that presented analysis and solutions to speculation in the housing market, with a number of speakers highlighting CLTs as a key solution. It ended with a forceful call to get together to make housing a key priority of the upcoming regional and federal elections, with a call towards newly-elected mayors to support the Cities for Adequate Housing Declaration.
Press
- Participants of the peer-to-peer exchange we organised with CLT Ghent in December shared their enthusiasim through blog posts. Click here for World Habitat’s report and here for CLT Bijlmer (Amsterdam)’s take.
National CLT Network
- The National CLT Network revealed through a freedom of information request to Homes England that over 3500 community led homes could be lost if the Government’s Community Housing Fund isn’t extended. They have been campaigning on it’s extension since last year. Click here to find out more information about the FOI and campaign.