NRLA marks third year of homelessness project in Newport
A homelessness project backed by the NRLA has celebrated its third anniversary this month.
Based in Newport, the Homewards project brings together landlords, local authorities, charities, support groups, and schools to develop practical and workable solutions to tackle homelessness - particularly among vulnerable communities including young people and women experiencing violence and isolation.
Our Welsh representative Gillian Owens has been a key member of the wider Homewards steering group since its inception three years ago, bringing the landlord perspective to ongoing discussions about the project's action plan.
Responsible landlords
That means making the case, at every stage, that responsible landlords are part of the solution - not part of the problem - and that their involvement in shaping local housing strategies is essential if those strategies are to work.
"This project is so much more than a conversation about housing supply," says Gillian. "It is about earlier interventions and prevention — working with young people and women experiencing violence and isolation and bringing together so many community groups and support organisations around a plan that can really deliver."
The anniversary event, held at Rodney Parade — home of the Newport Gwent Dragons and Newport County - was attended by more than 80 representatives from across those groups.
Homewards operates as an umbrella initiative, bringing together and funding smaller projects across Newport that tackle homelessness from different angles.
Charity
Among those is Eden Gate, a Christian homelessness charity delivering an accredited construction skills training programme for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.
Elsewhere in the city, women with lived experience of homelessness have collaborated with a local artist to create a mural now on public display at the Kingsway Centre — its design shaped entirely by the women themselves.
The project is funded by the Prince and Princess of Wales's Royal Foundation and, in addition to Newport, in Gwent, operates across five locations in the UK - Aberdeen, Bournemouth, Sheffield, Northern Ireland and Lambeth in London.Newport was selected because of the particular challenges it faces around youth homelessness and significant areas of deprivation. Its aim is to ensure that homelessness ‘becomes rare, brief, and something that is not repeated’.
As a landlord, your homes are at the heart of this conversation. If you would like to find out more about the Homewards project and the work being done in Newport, visit homewards.org.uk.
