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Peer Landlord

 The Peer Landlord project seeks to test a model of shared housing provision where more advanced clients are able to provide informal, positive, role model peer-support to other clients in a structured, supportive accommodation arrangement.

We are delighted to be testing this innovative model with two leading organisations:

• Catch 22, delivering a Peer Landlord project for young people, and
• Thames Reach, delivering 'The Peer Landlord London' project, focused on those moving on from hostels and seeking to secure employment.

The model

Peer Landlord accommodation will offer an alternative to the traditional models of shared, supported housing, whilst challenging the notion that private, rented shared housing is an unattractive option. However it is an option that current government policy is forcing more and more people into - many without the skills and experience to make such accommodation work for them.

By working with our partners we aim to have a dozen houses in north and south London let by Catch 22 and Thames Reach on a shared tenancy basis, providing people at risk of becoming homeless with quality and affordable private accommodation, supported by a Peer Landlord. It provides an opportunity for clients to learn from each other, learn the skills required for shared housing, understand the costs and budgets of living in private accommodation and better prepare them for sustaining independent living arrangements in the future while holding down a job.

The Peer Landlord

The Peer Landlord will not be a professional but another service user or ex-service user. They are not being paid to provide any formal support to the lodger. They are there as a positive role model and as someone with a responsibility for making ‘their house' run smoothly. This is about supportive housing, not supported housing.

Peer Landlords will be trained in key areas such as basic housing management and maintenance awareness, as well as financial literacy - from paying bills to managing money, critical for supporting lodgers and the shared housing model. Example of modules include: Looking after your home; being safe in your home; you and your tenancy; organising your time; utility bills; what's out there, and; active citizenship.

Prepare to Share

The opportunity to live in a house with a Peer Landlord will be used as a progression opportunity and incentive. Only once clients who are already known to and supported by our partners have demonstrated some progression will they become eligible for this option. As part of the eligibility to this programme, they must ‘prepare to share': to anticipate the sorts of situations and challenges they will face, and agree in advance to strategies for dealing with them. It provides a formal agreement for sharers and the right to seek help and mediation if either sharer is unhappy with how things are going.