Friday, July 10, 2009

Self-help-housing

I've had the privilege of visiting number of self help housing projects over the last few years. And I have to say it’s been one of the best bits of this fantastic job I have. There is something that feels very right about enabling people with no home to create one out of one that somebody else abandoned.

Projects like Canopy and Latch in Leeds, advocates for the homeless in London and youthbuild in Harrogate all train young homeless people to renovate empty buildings. Many volunteers end up living in the properties they have renovated and others find work as a result of the skills they have developed. It’s inspiring stuff! There is a growing movement of new schemes starting up all the time. But now for the first time, there is an excellent resource that shows you how to go about it: Self-help-housing.org Whether you want to start a project, want to improve an existing one or are just interested I’d recommend checking it out.

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