Funding event - Housing

Notes from the housing workshop of the March 20 2024 PB Learning Event on Funding:

• Fiona spoke about Ardenglen’s PB work focusing on child poverty/food poverty. Their role as a landlord gave them a real insight into the lives and circumstances of their tenants (and their families).

• Worked with local schools (a budget of £10k each to explore the Cost of a School Day) to set up the Your School You Decide PB programme – there was great participation and a wide range of outcomes achieved.

• Have since been continually looking for more opportunities to do PB including tying in PB to existing projects e.g. Food Pantry – Cash for Castlemilk. Have seen the broader benefits of increased participation based on improved relationships. There has been a big focus on evaluation – constantly learning from what they’ve done and the impacts of the work.

• Evaluation is a requirement from funders but is also essential to good practice. PB funding in a housing context can focus on: social development and support; tenant participation; and tenancy sustainment (all linking to increased confidence and individual capacity). 

• Challenges – funding bodies need to be more aware of what PB is and what it can achieve; we still need to be better at ensuring there is wider access to PB funds (not just the higher capacity groups who are good at ‘grant hoovering’) 

• Opportunities – community benefit funds – not just renewables but also construction companies; much more of a pragmatic and collaborative approach to local funding