Since joining the HCA, I am less involved in developing human stories which demonstrate the affordable housing’s positive impact than.
This is mainly because although we directly fund the delivery of tens of thousands of new homes, they are built and managed by organisations that have the direct links with tenants and first time buyers who benefit.
This leaves us reliant on social landlords and housing providers to uncover those occasional gems needed to bring a standard story to life.
Human interest hits home
This week we found such a story with our announcement of a £1.1m investment in the Culverdale estate in Totnes.
We annnounced this as tenants moved into an earlier phase of completed homes, funded by the HCA in the same neighbourhood.
One of the new tenants is mum-of-three Rhona Curley, who moved into a new three-bedroomed house with her partner Howard Campbell and Molly, aged eight, Skye, six, and 18-month-old Lewis. Before moving, the family struggled to climb two flights of stairs to access their small flat with Skye, who has Down’s Syndrome and has undergone two heart operations.
Rhona’s input into the story (and some lovely pictures of her family, which are below) brought home why this investment matters in places like Totnes. This is a place where high house prices and a lack of mortgage finance makes access to affordable housing increasingly out of reach for many more people.
With nearly 2,000 families on the social housing waiting list in the South Hams (and more than 750 for Totnes alone), however, there is still a massive need for more schemes like this to be delivered.
