Broadland Housing Association

Homes, community & support since 1963

    • Norfolk

    Tenants raise £900 for Ukraine

    Tenants raise £900 for Ukraine

    Generous tenants at our Woodcote sheltered housing scheme have raised £900 for the Red Cross. The fundraising will help support children and elderly people caught up in the conflict in Ukraine.

    The 60 residents at Woodcote in Hethersett held a special coffee morning, where they watched 2 films about the background to the conflict. One film was presented by Red Cross workers on the ground in Ukraine.

    Stephen Baxter, scheme manager (far right in picture), said:

    Lots of residents had been asking what they could do to help. They were moved by images of families and elderly people suffering terrible conditions as a result of the conflict,

    Also, one of the carers who works here has a Ukrainian husband, so that has also brought the crisis closer to home.

    Woodcote tenant Richard Headicar said:

    The suffering of elderly people and children and families caught up in what is going on in Ukraine has tugged on all of our heartstrings.  We all wanted to do what we could to help mitigate their plight.

    Fellow tenant Molly Allison added:

    I have cried every morning when I see what is happening on the television.

    Humanitarian aid

    Red Cross teams are working both in Ukraine itself and in neighbouring countries, where they are providing humanitarian aid to the influx of refugees. This includes food and water, first aid and medicines, warm clothes and shelter.

    The charity has distributed over 90,000 food and hygiene parcels and provided food, warm clothes and other aid to around 7,000 people sheltering in metro stations in Kyiv. It has also delivered first aid training to over 12,000 people in Ukraine.

    Broadland teams up with YMCA Norfolk for Sleep Easy 2022

    UPDATE: 4 April 2022 – the Broadland Housing team slept out on Friday 11 March (pictured below) – employees, friends and supporters raised over £1,700 in sponsorship. In total the YMCA raised £5,500 from the Sleep Out!

    Broadland Housing’s Chief Executive, Michael Newey, will lead a team of employees sleeping rough to raise funds for YMCA Norfolk next month.

    As part of the national YMCA Sleep Easy 2022 campaign, the Broadland team will sleep out on the night of Friday 11 March. Employees will bed down in the car park of the YMCA’s new Community Hub on Aylsham Road in Norwich.

    We are delighted to partner with YMCA Norfolk to help raise much-needed funds to transform the lives of young people in Norfolk. Last year, more than 4,200 people are estimated to have slept rough across England and Wales. We will be sleeping out to raise awareness and funds so that young homeless people in Norfolk can have a safe, secure place to call home.

    Michael Newey, Chief Executive, Broadland Housing Group

    Where and when

    📅 Friday 11 March

    📍 YMCA Norfolk, 61a Aylsham Road, Norwich, NR3 2HF (or host your own

    event!)

    Join the event

    To register & download a participant pack, please visit www.ymcanorfolk.org/sleep-easy-2022/

    Sponsor the Broadland team

    You can donate at www.justgiving.com/fundraising/broadlandhousingsleepeasy2022

    About Sleep Easy 2022

    Each year YMCA Norfolk joins YMCAs from across England and Wales to take part in a mammoth Sleep Easy fundraising event with the aim of raising vital funds to help tackle the root causes of youth homelessness. 

    From 7pm on Friday 11 March to 7am on Saturday 12 March, hundreds of people across the country will be sleeping anywhere but their beds to raise awareness of the thousands of young people who are made homeless each year.

    YMCA Norfolk is calling on the county to join in!  Every night YMCA Norfolk provides a safe home and support for over 260 vulnerable young people in the county. Money raised from the event will go towards delivering much-needed support for residents and vulnerable young people. This year it will help provide homes for homeless young people in Norwich.

    YMCA wants to support young people towards independent living. This means not only providing them with a roof over their head but also somewhere that they’re proud to call home.

    Elm Road, Thetford

    With our partners Breckland Council, we have built 5 new homes offering dedicated support to people who were formerly sleeping rough from across the Breckland district.

    The development includes 4 x 2-storey, 1-bedroom terraced homes and an adjoining bungalow, with a shared garden space.

    Former rough sleepers are supported to transition into longer-term accommodation. Individuals also get help to access education, employment opportunities and healthcare. 

    The homes were developed in the grounds of Elm House, formerly called Elm Road Community Centre. Breckland Council has converted the centre itself into emergency accommodation units. 

    Broadland secures £15 million for new affordable homes through sustainable bonds

    Working with MORhomes, Broadland has raised funding for new development through the issuance of £15 million of sustainable bonds.

    A sustainable business

    To be eligible for this funding, we had to demonstrate that we are a sustainable business and fulfil certain environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria.

    We will use the proceeds generated from the bond issuance to fund new affordable homes.

    Competitively priced, long-term funding

    MORhomes is 100% owned and controlled by housing associations. It is constituted as a PLC and applies the highest standards of corporate governance. MORhomes is a unique and innovative borrowing vehicle for the UK social housing sector, raising finance on the bond markets and lending it on to housing associations, who must be shareholders.

    At Broadland we are focused on sustainability across all parts of our organisation. Our involvement with MORhomes and their Sustainability Bond has provided us with an opportunity to demonstrate our ESG credentials and obtain competitively priced, long-term funding that will allow us to develop new affordable homes.

    Iain Grieve, Executive Finance Director, Broadland Housing

    We are proud to have developed a genuinely unique approach to assessing the sustainability impact of our housing association borrowers. Borrowers like Broadland Housing who meet our standards are going above and beyond current requirements and helping meet the Government’s zero carbon target and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. We are pleased to be able to demonstrate to investors the excellent sustainability work which they are doing.

    Patrick Symington, Chief Executive, MORhomes

    It was a pleasure to work with Broadland and MORhomes to deliver this successful and competitively priced long-term funding. This financing will enable Broadland to continue to deliver its development programme and meet the needs of its customers.

    Lawrence Gill, Director Corporate Finance, Centrus – advisors to Broadland

    For more details about the sustainable bonds issuance, please see the MORhomes’ announcement.

    MORhomes plc logo

    Tenants can now get training in independent living skills

    Independent East / Your Own Place / Broadland Housing logos

    Broadland Housing tenants can benefit from tenancy and independent living skills training – thanks to our membership of Independent East.

    Your Own Place CIC successfully delivered its Tenancy and Independent Living Skills (TILS+) workshops to Saffron Housing Trust tenants last year. These engaging, practical workshops are now being offered to tenants of Broadland, Freebridge and Orwell housing associations, through their membership of Independent East.

    From January 2022, Your Own Place, a social enterprise based in East Anglia, will deliver the workshops to tenants at locations across Norfolk and Suffolk. The workshops, a mix of digital and face-to-face sessions, provide opportunities for people of all ages to develop and build on existing skills. A wide range of topics is covered, including saving and budgeting, self-care and wellbeing, and digital skills. The aim is to make a positive difference to tenants’ lives through developing their confidence and resilience.

    Helping more people into employment

    The partnership with Your Own Place is an exciting collaboration for Independent East. The new initiative aims to help more people into employment, reducing rent arrears and potential future evictions.

    Helping people to sustain their tenancies is a central part of what Broadland do. We are thrilled to be part of this partnership with Independent East and Your Own Place to invest in more support and training for many more people.

    Catherine Little, Executive Housing Director, Broadland Housing Association

    We’re absolutely delighted to be working not just with the residents of 4 regional housing associations, but with 4 housing associations that want to collaborate, support residents from across East Anglia and recognise that our Tenancy & Independent Living Skills Plus (TILS+) are beneficial for any person in any situation. Their compassion and understanding that having an impact on lives goes way beyond just being their landlord is why we want to work with them and be a part of building on the skills that tenants already have. We know that the residents we work with are experts in their own lives, we respect their experiences and contributions and love the two-way learning. Fun, participative and engaging workshops will be delivered with 400 tenants during 2022 across 8 different locations – with the aim of building the skills to be happy in their homes and ultimately prevent homelessness.

    Rebecca White, CEO, Your Own Place

    We have been really pleased with how well the workshops have been received by Saffron’s tenants and it’s fantastic that it’s now going to be delivered by Independent East to help even more tenants across the region. Not only is it a great opportunity for them to learn new skills, but it provides scope for tenants to meet those from other housing associations, share their experiences, support one another and help create cohesive communities.

    Paula Tuck, Assistant Director of Customer Services at Saffron and member of the Independent East Residents Group

    Watch a video of Chantay, one of Saffron’s tenants, talking about her experience of the TILS+ workshops (credit: Your Own Place).

    Accessibility by WAH