Cosmopolitan Housing Association: An answer to the UK mortgage crisis?

Source: Construction Digital

Date :01/09/2008 14:38:06

Affordable housing is out there – you just have to find it. Exec learns more about Cosmopolitan Housing Association.

Written by Bret Michaels and Produced by Nicholas Davies

With UK mortgage approvals reaching record lows this month, we’ve been warned by Alistair Darling and the Government that the mortgage market is unlikely to recover for the next three years.

It seems there is no quick fix to this problem. People who are struggling to get approval for a mortgage face an impossible battle to get a house. So is there an answer?

Well, if you live in the North West, Cosmopolitan Housing Association (CHA) might be able to help. It provides a wide range of rented accommodation, including houses, flats, studios, bungalow, sheltered accommodation and extra care housing.

“Our properties accommodate singles, couples, families, the elderly and disabled people to enable sustainable and diverse communities,” says the Liverpool-based housing association.

Housingnet.co.uk describes CHA as a ‘medium sized RSL which manages some 4000 homes,’ and says the association is currently ‘undergoing a period of planned and significant growth’. This is being driven by its commitment to ‘assisting the Local Authorities, with whom it works closely, to deliver a wide range of regeneration initiatives’.

CORE VALUES

CHA is part of the Cosmopolitan Housing Group, the parent of a diverse range of companies engaged in the provision of social housing, accommodation for students and young professionals and innovative housing and development solutions. Its vision is to be recognised as a leading provider of “diverse, innovative and high quality housing related products,” and the group’s mission is to provide “leadership” and promote “excellence” in each member company and “maintain an infrastructure for continued growth and financial stability.”

How does the group, formed in 2001, ensure this? To make sure each member company respects the group’s core values of providing sustainable housing and quality services, it has developed a number of values. Firstly, it wants each member to “listen to and communicate” with customers in a “timely, accurate and respectful manner”. Secondly, it wants members to “bring about positive results by developing effective and efficient solutions”. And it also wants members to be “open to change and flexible” in attitude.

“Respect, integrity, trust and fairness are fundamental to personal, customer and inter-agency actions,” continues the company, which adds: “We want a culture where everyone is involved, accountable, respected and appreciated. We aim to perform at the highest level of competence and taking pride in accomplishment.”

In keeping with these principles, CHA has an Allocations & Support Team, which is committed to providing a high quality service to its customers. “One of our main areas of work is dealing with the allocation of properties to both general and supported tenants,” says the firm. “We also work closely with support agencies who manage a proportion of our Supported Housing Schemes on our behalf. We also provide floating support to allow our tenants to live independently in their homes.”

A LONG HISTORY

CHA was established in 1969 as Liverpool and District Student Housing Association and has undergone several name changes, most notably to Young Persons Housing Association, before adopting its present name.

Today, it is a growing and financially vibrant housing association, which, if you are looking at renting, you should definitely have a look at.

“CHA now owns and manages approximately 2000 properties in Liverpool, Wirral, Halton, Knowsley, Sefton, St Helens and West Lancashire,” says the firm. “The Association has close working relationships with the Local Authorities and a range of partner and stakeholder groups in each of these areas. It is now well positioned to build upon its strengths as a flexible organisation that can be relied upon to deliver continued growth alongside a commitment to service excellence.”

PIVITOL ROLE

The work of firms like CHA is vital, especially in the current climate, and must surely be welcomed by council leaders, who have voiced concerns in the press recently about the UK housing debacle, where current economic trends have created unprecedented demand for council and housing association homes, which councils are struggling to meet.

Banks’ aggressive lending policies over recent years haven’t helped either and there are now a large number of “miserable borrowers”.

As if to add to the long list of woes, the Local Government Association (LGA) has also voiced concerned about the situation, pointing to the fact that house prices have risen by 156 percent in ten years while wages have risen by just 35 percent.

It seems today it is more difficult to get onto the housing market or even find an affordable rented home than it would be to win the Premier League with Luton Town. The negative effect of that is developers have reduced the amount they build and consequently the amount of new affordable homes reduces.

It is likely that it’ll take a number of years for the market to return to any sort of normality. The global credit crunch, which is already a year old, has seen to that. Many have criticised current policy and attempts to resolve this situation, while calling on new-age solutions, which are “from this century”.

I guess we’ll wait with bated breath.