Thought house-building was just something ‘professionals’ could do? Think again!
Community led housing is a growing movement of people taking action and managing housing projects that build the decent and affordable homes.
People powered homes can take different forms – from co-housing schemes where people agree to live together as an intentional community, through to Community Land Trusts and Development Trusts where people come together to create low cost housing owned by the community in perpetuity. Other people powered housing includes community self-build, housing co-operatives and self-help housing.
People Powered Homes
Here in Leeds we people have created groundbreaking schemes which have been copied and followed across the country. People powered housing like LILAC is well established, others like Mistress Lane in Armley are in development. Schemes across Leeds and Yorkshire are all included in the national schemes map.
We believe anyone can create People Powered Homes
Anyone can start, volunteer and deliver a community led housing project. You don’t need to work in housing, you don’t need a degree in architecture, you don’t need to be a builder. If you think a change is needed, you can lead that change.
And that’s why we are here. To help groups that want to start schemes to develop new schemes ourselves and to work with others like Councils, landowners and developers to make it easier for community led housing to happen.
Our objectives
- As a Community Land Trust (CLT), acquire land and buildings to create homes for affordable rental and sale
- Support other people and organisations to create Community-led Housing (CLH)
- Develop and implement a self-sustaining business model by 2021
- Create or enable 1000 community-led homes by 2027
- Through community share offers and other means, raise finance for CLH
- Promote Leeds Community Homes (LCH), and the benefits of a community-led approach to creating housing
- Engage the people of Leeds and beyond regarding how to create housing which makes for better places to live, for all of us
- Work at a strategic level, locally and nationally, to facilitate the development of the CLH movement
During 2020 to 2024 we will meet our objectives by:
- Supporting – Providing an enabling Hub to help others create new community-led homes
- Developing – Building new community-led, affordable housing ourselves and in partnerships
- Movement building – National and local policy work and networking to create and support an environment which leads to more CLH
We are a registered Community Land Trust.
