Housing Co-op Partnership with a CLT? Unusual times call for unusual strategies

Hastings Rental Health discuss partnering with Hastings Commons CLT + Living Rents

The magic partner we had been hoping for popped up barely weeks after we'd been confronted with the impossible costs of a development on our own. We were in a Hastings Housing Alliance meeting when Hastings Commons CEO Jess Steele mentioned a site they were looking at to create housing for folks in temporary accommodation. Exactly what we had been discussing. We talked some more after the meeting, and arranged a seperate meeting, and have since had a meeting with our co-op advisor and Hastings Commons to work out how we HRH would fit within the development. One idea is to buy Hastings Commons out eventually so that HRH own the land, but that is likely going to bring the rents up again. The other option is to be a renters co-op and rent from their housing branch - Living Rents, which is going through the process of becoming a registered housing provider, meaning they can take people off the temporary housing list like a social housing provider. So it's really not too desimilar to what we have been trying to do with one of our members currently in temporary accommodation and another expecting to go into TA soon.