Homes And Work For Change
Homes And Work For Change (HAWFC) operates at the intersection of housing and employment, treating them not as separate services but as a single, integrated urban planning intervention. By housing people and providing them with jobs on the very sites where they live, HAWFC creates a circular social economy where residential stability and vocational skills feed each other.
Overview
HAWFC is a UK-based charity that delivers housing and employment for underserved communities. The charity’s model is built on two pillars:
- Community Housing: Delivering affordable homes on land held by the community, not by a private developer.
- Vocational Training: Providing training and employment in construction and other trades, with a focus on creating jobs on the housing sites themselves.
The charity’s approach is rooted in the idea that housing and work are mutually reinforcing. A stable home gives people a base from which to train and work; in turn, the jobs that the charity creates provide the skills and income needed to maintain and grow the community.
Planning Framework: The Housing-Jobs Loop
From an urban planning perspective, HAWFC’s model is a radical alternative to the usual top-down delivery of large-scale housing. Instead of a developer building a site and handing it over to a management company, the community owns the land and the housing.
The housing-jobs loop is the engine of the model:
- Land and Housing: The community acquires land and builds homes for people who would otherwise be excluded from the housing market.
- Skills and Training: HAWFC runs vocational training programmes on the housing sites, teaching construction skills to local people.
- Employment: The charity employs the trainees on the building projects, creating a direct link between the housing and the jobs.
- Circularity: The jobs fund the housing, the housing provides the jobs, and the community owns both.
This model turns housing sites into training grounds and employment hubs, creating local circular economies rather than extracting profit from the land.
Architecture of the Model
The charity’s structure is a social enterprise model that combines charitable governance with business operations. The land is held by the housing charity, which means the profit from the housing goes back into the community rather than to shareholders. The employment side is run as a trading subsidiary, which allows the charity to trade and compete for contracts while still serving its social purpose.
This dual structure is essential for the model to work. The housing charity provides the assets and the mission, and the employment subsidiary provides the commercial skills and the employment links. Together, they deliver a coherent project that addresses both housing and work.
Impact
HAWEC’s approach has a deep social impact on underserved communities:
- Community Ownership: By holding the land in community ownership, the charity prevents land grabs and ensures that the value created by the housing remains in the community.
- Skills and Employment: The vocational training programmes give people the skills they need to find work, and the employment on the housing sites provides a direct route into the construction industry.
- Social Capital: The integrated model builds social capital by creating a community that is both housed and employed, with shared ownership of the land and the jobs.
The HAWFC model shows that housing and work do not have to be separate services. By combining them on the same sites, the charity creates a more resilient and self-sustaining model for urban planning and community development.