A history of Origin in Enfield

Chief Exec Adrian Norridge Adrian who recommended expanding into Enfield in 1987. There had been a surge in homelessness and the council didn’t have enough funds so welcomed privately funded housing association developments in the area.

After developing homes in Enfield, on 1 October 2014, Origin Housing merged with Lee Housing Association and renamed the new service Enfield Single Housing, or ESH for short.

 

Lee Housing Association, based in Ponders End, was formed in the 1960’s to provide affordable housing to Middlesex University students. The University moved it’s campus in 2010 and, as a result, Lee broadened its work to provide housing for single homeless people in the borough of Enfield. 
 

Lee Housing provided 305 units of shared accommodation, 36 self-contained homes and owned three commercial properties which Origin took on to form ESH.
 

Enfield Single Housing is a unique service. We take on 100% direct referrals from single adults with no place to live, with priority given to those genuinely homeless but currently in employment, training or education.
 

Many of our new residents are moving on from their family home, or from staying with relatives for the first time, most having exhausted the good will of friends and family where they have been sofa surfing.
 

Our aim is to provide people with safe, affordable, comfortable accommodation with additional support to help them settle in, manage their money, improve their health and sustain their tenancies.
 

To support our new residents, we teamed up with two entrepreneurs Rich Grahame and Kate Slee, who after working in homeless hostels started an organisation called Settle.  
 

They offered our formerly homeless young people workshops on everything from how to budget, to cooking classes, taking a preventative approach to offer skills and assistance to ensure the young people can help themselves and avoid repeat homelessness.     
 

In addition to the pioneering Settle project, a job club was introduced in April 2015 to help get our residents into employment and help guide them through the process of getting into work.  
 

Since the creation of our ESH service, the team there have helped over 1,000 people get back on their feet.  
 

The team at ESH always go above and beyond to support residents. Often filling in for each other, to make sure we offer a high standard of service. And that isn’t all, every month the team donates to a fund which is used in December to buy food for the local foodbank.
 

That isn’t all we do in Enfield. We also provide supported housing services including :  

• Since December 2017 we’ve been providing three hours of support to our residents at Ferguson House on Brimsdowne Avenue.

 

• We ran Old Church Court (a service for 18 people with learning disabilities) for 10 years

 

• We offer a floating support service for our tenants with additional needs, so people can live independent lives

 

• As well as helping people through our Support Hub, providing additional support to help tenants sustain their tenancy, to ensure tenants are getting the help they need from Adult social care services, NHS trust and others and from us as their landlord, supporting them to prevent eviction, social isolation and a lot more.

See what one of our residents has to say about her experience with the service here: