Growing the supply of affordable rented accommodation in Enfield

As of December 2013, there were over 2,100 homeless families in Enfield, ranking it as the 7th highest council nationally for the number of households in temporary accommodation. 

We supported Enfield Council in developing a financially robust model to increase the supply of long term, well managed, private rented accommodation for homeless households. 

A new entity, Housing Gateway Ltd, was established in 2014 as a wholly owned housing company and funded by loans from Enfield to acquire and manage a portfolio of homes within or close to council boundaries. It was one of the first council housing companies to address the challenges of high numbers of people in temporary accommodation.

Enfield Council has nomination rights over the homes, which are let at local housing allowance rents to homeless families on the council waiting list.

Housing Gateway Ltd (HGL) initially invested £100m over a four year period to acquire 400 homes and has since expanded further with a current portfolio of over 550 homes and aims to build a new social lettings business alongside of over 700 homes. The Council has estimated annual savings of at least £1.5m and aggregate financial savings exceeding £9m from reduced spend on expensive temporary accommodation as at 2021.

HGL has been successful in improving the quality, availability and security of private rented accommodation for those at risk of homelessness, whilst also realising a financial saving for the Council.

Our work in Enfield was the subject of a 2022 report, Providing decent homes to families at risk of homelessness, which used Housing Gateway as an example of an​‘open source’ approach to impact at scale.