With a mass of vacant, unused commercial property across the country, Empty Spaces to Homes provides a toolkit for local authorities, charities and other organisations who are seeking to transform vacant commercial spaces into homes for young people. Acting as a step-by-step guide, the toolkit offers practical insights into the development process, across financing, legal, community consultation and construction project management. Alongside the toolkit, an empty space spotter has been built, allowing people to identify vacant sites to create a database of properties.
The initiative is being led by Habitat for Humanity Great Britain. They have worked with the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham on a pilot to convert two properties into housing for care leavers. It aims to house over 100 people over a 15 year period. In addition, a disused council property has been transformed into a workshop to renovate furniture for young people.
An adjacent project is also being piloted in Poland. Amid a UK housing crisis which disproportionately impacts young people, this toolkit offers important guidance to stimulate the re-development of unused assets so that communities can benefit and especially to help ensure young people leaving care have access to housing as they embark on their adulthood.