When I was a child, I actually wanted to be a Librarian. I don't think anybody in housing ever really thought they'd end up in housing.
In my pursuit to becoming a Librarian I ended up, like many others, falling into housing a little accidentally.
I found myself running appraisals for new builds which, at the time, were 72% grant-funded and everything was rosy. I progressed upwards in housing working in the North East for 13 or 14 years before moving down to London.
One thing I noticed quite quickly is that although both London and the North of England like to think they're very different from each other, they're actually very similar...except for the accents!
Ultimately, through my experiences, I found that there's only so much you can do while being a contractor or a client, and the big change with moving to Lumensol has been the ability to really affect change. There's more room to go in and actually try to make a difference. We're a bit of a speedboat in a sea of tankers.
Anna Benbow (middle) with other Lumensol colleagues at our team conference!
I focus on transformational change for managed services with clients that have a DLO, but also do a lot of work on housing solutions. Focusing on the significant homelessness situation, and looking at how we at Lumensol can help with that.
That ranges from buying stock for temporary accommodation (TA), trying to find solutions for families stuck living in hotels, identifying issues within the TA process itself, upstream prevention, and working to improve conditions for the thousands of people living in TA.
My shift into focusing on homelessness specifically came when I worked on a contract that saw me directly dealing with people made homeless by the Grenfell tragedy. Trying to help those survivors drove home how important housing is to your health, mental and physical. It is often the small things you might not think about that can make a massive difference.
This is the same thing with empty homes, why do we - as a sector - rip out perfectly good flooring and leave a family (that could have come from being homeless with no possessions) with a new home that has bare floorboards? What cost is a carpet in one room - a safe place to put the kids while you unpack the bedroom?
It doesn't cost much money to do, but the value for the family that moves in is immeasurable.
It's not a secret that the condition of TA, certainly across London, is a concern to me and many others. You will have seen news around Damp and Mould, and Awaab's Law which is vitally important. Housing is up there on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as a key need in everyone's life...if you don't have accommodation, or your accommodation is poor quality, it has a major negative impact on you and your family and subsequently impacts all other areas of your lives.
There have been a lot of decisions in the past - like Right To Buy - which absolutely decimated the social housing stock. There are thousands more people who need help and who need social housing as a first rung of support to help them and help rebuild their lives. Having a home makes education easier, makes family life easier, and makes finding employment easier…..that is what it is there for, and it is needed now more than ever.
If you look online you'd be forgiven for thinking this has become an issue because of this apparent influx of Asylum seekers, but that's just not the reality. Even in the last couple of years, most people who need housing are your typical families who are struggling. Perhaps they were laid off during or just after COVID, or maybe their private sector landlord has decided to sell their property because they can't afford higher interest rates on the mortgage. Regular people and families who become homeless through no fault of their own. In a parallel world, it could be you or me in that situation.
Truth be told it's a myriad of issues that contribute to the homelessness crisis. We can do as much as we can to help, in whatever form that takes - guiding a client to put in carpets or doing that charity run for Shelter - all of which is a better idea than just getting frustrated and doing nothing. I personally will always choose to try and do my very best to make things better.
It's easy to feel overwhelmed by the reports on homelessness. You see a massive number of homeless people and it can be tough to contextualise, but you have to remember that every single person in that dataset has a story, and we don't hear that story.
We, as Lumensol, work incredibly hard to make conditions in current social housing better for the people who live there. Even simple things like making sure repairs are done or making companies more efficient in delivering services to these houses. These are positive effects that make a tangible difference.
We factor in the human element in everything that we do. Unfortunately, if you're a Housing Association, it has to be a numbers game. Funding needs to be reported on, financial viability is important. But at the end of the day, you do have to ask the question - "What about the person who lives here?"
Behind every dispute of who was responsible for this repair or that action, there's a person sitting at home waiting for a critical issue in their home to be resolved.
I might have fallen into housing a little unexpectedly, but I don't regret going down this path at all. I could have changed paths - perhaps even gone back to try and become a Librarian! - but honestly, I'm quite good at what I do now, and that's allowed me to make a real difference in something that's become quite important to me.
When I worked on the aftermath of Grenfell there was a young woman who had lost everything. We managed to arrange a home for her. We did some work on the property and turned up to let her in when it was ready. We realised when we got there that she was disabled.
We told her that we'd make adjustments to accommodate, but she told us "I just want a home, I don't need anything else" and that has stuck with me throughout everything that I do.
Ultimately my contributions to reducing homelessness may very well amount to a tiny drop in a vast ocean when all is said and done, but if I can do my part to help one family improve their situation then that's good enough for me.
After that family, it's the next family, then the next one, for as long as I can do it.