FAQs — Why a Key Worker Homes Fund?
What is the Key Worker Homes Fund?
The Key Worker Homes Fund is a resource for London’s Local Authorities and Housing Associations. It provides pro-bono technical consultancy and the financing necessary to accelerate the delivery of affordable, sustainable, beautiful homes for London’s key workers, near to where they work.
Why was it created?
London has a problem. Key workers are an invisible infrastructure of our city, yet more than half of them cannot afford to live in the city. Too many are forced to endure long commutes and return to insecure or low standard homes. Their quality of life determines the standard of our public services, and the wellbeing of our communities. The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a light on the dire situation for many key workers.
Key workers are not currently prioritised in housing delivery. The Key Worker Homes Fund is one way of changing this; by creating a new model of delivery in partnership with London’s Local Authorities and Housing Associations.
The Key Worker Homes Fund also calls for homes to be ringfenced for key workers in new developments across the capital. We aim to inspire change to housing policy by demonstrating the need and a solution.
Why partner with Local Authorities and Housing Associations?
To achieve the greatest possible impact, the Key Worker Homes Fund makes resources available to the organisations that already deliver homes for many of the city’s key workers. These are Local Authorities and Housing Associations.
Furthermore, Local Authorities and Housing Associations are the largest landlords in London. The largest dozen Housing Associations alone own and manage more than 600,000 homes in London, and collectively they house one in ten Londoners (G15, 2020).
What’s the offer to Housing Associations and Local Authorities?
All eligible applicants receive pro-bono technical consultancy — in the form of a Feasibility Study on a site, or sites, owned and nominated by them — which assesses the opportunities for airspace development. The successful applicant(s) will benefit from Skyroom’s technical expertise as development partners on the project(s), and an allocation of the £100 million fund in development finance. (More about Applying to the Key Worker Homes Fund)
Who raised the money?
The Key Worker Homes Fund was created by Skyroom (skyroom.london), an award-winning technology and urban development company which delivers homes in the airspace above existing buildings.
Skyroom is a triple bottom line company, making a positive social, environmental and economic impact underpins everything we do. This commitment has been formalised through our white paper, Rise Up (riseup.skyroom.london), published by University College London’s Institute for Global Prosperity and Lord Richard Rogers in 2018.
Skyroom is a founding-member of the think-tank, Fast Forward 2030. We are a signatory of the UN Global Compact and of UKSSD, working towards UN Sustainable Development Goal 11 — ‘Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’.
How much money is on offer? Where does the money come from?
The Key Worker Homes Fund has secured an initial commitment of £100 million from a UK-based real estate firm.
What sort of impact is the Key Worker Homes Fund seeking to deliver?
The Key Worker Homes Fund uses triple bottom line metrics to measure success. We seek to make a positive social, environmental and economic impact.
Our ambition for the Key Worker Homes Fund is to enable the delivery of 1,000 new homes in partnership with London’s Local Authorities and Housing Associations.
We also want to see new homes ringfenced for key workers in new developments across the capital. We aim to inspire change to housing policy by demonstrating the need and a solution.
The Key Worker Homes Fund is one of many vehicles to realising UN Sustainable Development Goal 11 — Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
How is the Key Worker Homes Fund managed?
The Key Worker Homes Fund is managed and delivered by a Secretariat and Technical Team. It is overseen by a Board of Commissioners. Ambassadors support the Key Worker Homes Fund campaign: to improve the lives of key workers by delivering affordable, sustainable, beautiful homes close to where they work. Find out more about the Governance of the Key Worker Homes Fund. Commissioners and Ambassadors are announced via our news page.
Find out more about: the Key Worker Homes Fund | Skyroom | our white paper, Rise Up
