The Housing & Finance Institute researches on a board range of housing and finance related matters, including on budget matters and through our business market sentiment work. Our research and publications respond to issues arising in the marketplace, business and local government.
The HFi research papers have been extensively covered in the national and trade press.
Publications have included the following:
Operation Homemaker - March 2023
Operation Homemaker is a Housing & Finance Institute project. The Operation Homemaker Report can be downloaded here: Download Operation Homemaker
Operation Homemaker is a call to deliver 100,000 affordable homes in a year and a half, prioritising housing people who are homeless on the streets or statutorily homeless in hotels, bed & breakfasts or other temporary accommodation.
Over the last decade the number of statutory homeless living in temporary accommodation has near doubled towards 100,000. This includes 55,000 more children – a staggering 125,760 children are recorded as living in temporary accommodation in 2022. A previous report from the Housing & Finance Institute/ Radian, A Time for Good Homes (2019), detailed poor outcomes around temporary and poor quality housing, together with positive recommendations for 'good homes'. Last month, the HFI/Localis launched a policy paper exploring a new model of delivery for public rented homes (Public Rental Homes – fresh perspectives, HFI/Localis 2023).
More new housing has been delivered, with housebuilding numbers around 200,000 homes a year for the last 6 years. Over 1.7million new homes have been built over the last decade. Yet the need for housing, especially affordable housing is greater than ever for those who are on the streets or otherwise in need of permanent affordable housing.
With housebuilding expected to fall back significantly over the next two years, the number of affordable homes is expected to plummet too.
Operation Homemaker is a programme aimed at getting local councils, housebuilders and central government to work together to identify and accelerate affordable housing delivery during the expected downturn in construction. It has been designed to utilise current revenue and capital funding streams available within local and national government in order to support the building of new permanent and transitional housing for those in need of it.
The Homemaker programme builds on the model of delivery of the HFI's successful Housing Business Ready programme. Since 2015 The HFi has worked with over 80 councils and published 15 major reports. It works to make a practical difference to increasing skills, capacity and housing delivery.
