Origin excel at awards ceremony
13/05/2016
Origin Housing scooped two top spots at the prestigious Housing Excellence Awards 2016 held on 11 May. Origin was named as ‘Best Social Landlord (Medium-Size)’ and also took the top prize for ‘Best Supported Housing Scheme’ on the night for their pioneering mentoring project delivered in partnership with Settle. Settle supports vulnerable young people moving into their first home sustain successful tenancies.
A medium-sized housing association making a big impact, Origin Housing innovatively place an emphasis on developing the communities in which they work, working alongside not just their tenants but the wider social community.
The winning project for Best Supported Housing scheme was the Settle project, a volunteer-powered mentoring initiative designed to help recently homeless young people gain skills to live independently. The programme is run by two young social entrepreneurs with whom Origin formed a partnership in order to embraced their ideas and enable them to be realised. The project is now on-going, and to date, 100% of participants have maintained their tenancies, and 90% strongly agreeing that they felt more prepared to live independently.
Other projects contribution to Origin’s win as Best Social Landlord include Clean and Clear, a service offering assistance in clearing homes of residents who have a history of hoarding. Origin worked to identify a number of tenants in need of this service, and members of the Care and Support team received qualifications in hoarding before launching the service in November 2015.
Karen Wilson, Chief Executive at Origin Housing, comments “Origin’s mission is to make a difference to people’s lives through the provision of high quality homes and services. We are very proud to have received these awards. It is a great accolade to be recognised for this work.”
This double win is the latest in a series of award successes for Origin, who also picked up two gongs for Most Innovative Housing Provider (under 10,000 homes) and Most Innovative Affordable Development for Fitzrovia based scheme, Suffolk House, at the Housing Innovation Awards in February earlier this year.