About Southwark Habitat for Humanity
London is one of the richest and dynamic cities in the world, but it
also suffers real poverty and housing need. Southwark Habitat for
Humanity is part of the charity’s worldwide vision – aiming to eliminate
poverty housing and provide people with a safe and decent place to
live.
SHFH is a local, voluntary sector response to housing, working
outside the traditional mechanisms of supply in the public and private
sectors. At its heart, SHFH is a movement grounded in the local
community and a vehicle through which communities can respond to the
need for projects on their doorstep. By focussing on self-help,
community-based approaches, the homepartner families are involved in
transforming their own lives.
In Gordon Road and Habitat Close in Peckham, SHFH has completed
sixteen affordable housing units, helping low income families achieve
sustainable home ownership. We have recently completed the ‘Star of
India’ which was sold to a Housing Association and has provided social
rented homes for twelve local families.
These projects relied heavily on volunteers – supervised by our
skilled construction staff and qualified contractors - to provide labour
and funding. Over 1800 volunteers from a wide variety of organisations
helped us to build the Star of India, providing skilled and unskilled
labour on our site. We welcome volunteers from corporates, groups from
churches and construction trainees from local colleges who would like to
build with us. We strive to bring individuals together to work towards a
common goal of giving people a decent place to live; a banker from
Canary Wharf may be paired with a local young person from Peckham who is
gaining work experience on site. This is the building of community that
we passionately believe in and strive to achieve.
As well as building new homes, SHFH is increasingly working with
other organisations in both the voluntary and statutory sectors to
renovate and bring back older and empty property into use. In
partnership with the Salvation Army, we created eight ‘move on’
accommodation units for young homeless men and have recently completed
the refurbishment of a house for three ex-homeless men with another
charity.
We are looking forward to more exciting times in Southwark. Our new website is under construction and will be completed soon.
For information about building in Southwark please contact Gareth Hepworth at:
Southwark Habitat for Humanity
93 Gordon Road
London
SE15 3RR
Tel: 020 7732 0066
Fax: 020 7732 6060
Email:
gareth.hepworth@shfh.org.uk