Housing and Homelessness
Programme
Supporting organisations to end homelessness and create housing opportunity
Overview
A safe and secure home is fundamental to a fairer society. This is about creating opportunities and building strong communities where everyone can thrive and live dignified lives.
Far too many people are under constant pressure of losing their homes. The structural causes of homelessness include economic inequality and unemployment, discrimination and racism, and the lack of affordable housing. All too often housing is seen as a commodity, and as such a significant power imbalance persists for people experiencing homelessness and with the greatest housing need.
Homelessness is preventable. Genuinely affordable and suitable housing must be within reach for everyone. This is why the Housing and Homelessness Programme supports projects that work to challenge and resolve the systemic causes of homelessness in the UK and the US. We fund not-for-profit organisations that are ambitious in their strategies to address structural inequalities – from testing new approaches to scaling up what works.
Programme strategy paper
Oak’s Housing and Homelessness Programme believes in building greater power within communities and organisations that work most closely with people, strengthening their collective capacity to achieve change. Our grant-making seeks out organisations that are developing ambitious strategies, shaped by people with lived experience and rooted in robust evidence.
Priority themes and outcomes
Housing issues intersect with a range of social issues, including criminal justice, mental health, violence against women and girls, racism, discrimination and hate crime, migration and immigration, unemployment, and low wages. To reflect this, we are interested in funding organisations where housing issues form a part of their strategies, as well as organisations with a sole focus on housing and homelessness.
We support organisations that:
- help renters on low incomes
to access decent homes at genuinely affordable rent levels; - promote fairer tenancy agreements and end unfair evictions; and
- uncover and challenge discrimination which excludes people from accessing affordable and safe homes.
Outcomes
All renters have strong housing rights that are protected. This includes social and public housing tenants, as well as tenants in the private rented sector.
We support organisations that:
- campaign to improve supply of homes that are affordable for people with the lowest income and/or facing the most discrimination;
- support different models of community ownership that benefit people with the greatest housing need; and
- empower communities to advocate for more homes that meet housing need.
Outcomes
Increased supply of new and existing genuinely affordable and decent homes available to people most discriminated against by housing policy.
We support organisations that:
- empower and support people with complex needs through services that break the cycle of homelessness;
- develop stronger advocacy and campaigning to prevent all forms of homelessness; and
- improve equitable access to supported housing and suitable longer-term housing options.
Outcomes
Homelessness dramatically reduced and more suitable housing available for people with the greatest need.
Our programme grant-making in 2023
We made 45 grants totalling USD 36.96 million
Discover our partner stories
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