Group Members
Safe Haven Housing
The Early Years
Safe Haven Yorkshire (SHY) is a “not for profit” partnership between two registered social landlords, South Yorkshire Housing Association and the Yorkshire Housing Group. It was originally established in 2000 to provide accommodation and support to dispersed asylum seekers in the Yorkshire and Humberside region under a contract with the Home Office. However, in February 2006 SHY was unsuccessful in the re-tendering process to extend this NASS work for a further five years and the contract expired in July 2006.
Managing Properties under the Yorkshire Housing Group
Over the other years, SHY had developed good working relationships with many private landlords across the region during this period. The majority of these landlords were keen to see us continue with management of their properties. Prior to losing the NASS contract, we had already embarked upon a programme of exploring and exploiting diverse uses for some of the properties in our property portfolio. From July 2006 we have extended this to fill the majority of the properties that had previously been used for the NASS contract. Following South Yorkshire Housing Association's reduced involvement in SHY at the expiry of the contract, we are now operating under the umbrella of the Yorkshire Housing Group.
Partership with the International Organization for Migration
SHY’s diversification strategy also involved promoting the advisory and supporting aspects of its role. To this end, SHY established a partnership agreement with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in July 2004 to offer advice and assistance to refugees, asylum seekers and other migrant groups considering returning voluntarily to their country of origin. The success of SHY’s outreach work in this area has helped to create an enduring partnership with IOM resulting in employment for four full time and two part time SHY Project Workers.
Working with Local Authorities to Grant Assured Shorthold Tenancies
SHY is currently developing partnerships with many of the local authorities in the Y & H region for the provision of interim accommodation and longer term Assured Short-hold Tenancies (AST’s) through the private rented sector. The provision of AST’s may act as qualifying offers to households accepted as homeless or as a housing solution to households not accepted as homeless and therefore not in priority need. The benefits of these arrangements include stability and security for households in the private sector accommodation managed as social rented. This is also substantially better value for money than the traditional use of bed and breakfast.
Provider of emergency and interim accomodation
At the same time SHY is a provider of emergency and interim accommodation in Leeds, Sheffield, Calderdale and Bradford. We provide AST’s for tenants in Sheffield and Hull. In addition we accommodate and support Refugees in move-on, floating support and the Gateway programmes throughout the region. We accommodate Asylum Seeker Unaccompanied Children on behalf of Sheffield Social Services and vulnerable adults supported under the National Assistance Act for local authorities in Bradford and Sheffield.
Gateway Protection Plan
Safe Haven did the national pilot for the Government’s Gateway Protection Program in Sheffield and continues to provide properties for the program in both Sheffield and Hull. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees sends missions to the various camps around the world to assess claims for asylum. This means that those who are part of the program arrive in the country not as asylum seekers, but as refugees. This is how most other countries deal with asylum issues. Safe Haven is delighted that having done the national pilot we can see the program spreading across the UK, and are proud of the part we have, and continue to play in the success of this vital program.
Strict Criteria to ensure fitness and safety
We procure property through leasing arrangements with a large number of private landlords as well as through Social Registered Landlords (including many from outside the Group). All the property procured is inspected in advance of any occupation to ensure fitness and safety, including meeting Environmental Health Officer regulations, gas and electricity certification standards and Health and Safety Rating legislation. We only aim to procure from landlords in local authority registered landlord schemes and we have a strict quality criterion which we point out to landlords at the outset of negotiations. We are commited to procuring properties that are geographically spread throughout the towns on which we work and in places where there is easy access to places of worship, food shops, local community support groups and where there has been no history of crime against any minority groups. We ensure that all the correct statutory and legal obligations are met and that they have all the required insurance. We will make available a number of properties that are suitable for accommodating clients with mobility difficulties.
Dedicated Staff Delivering Quality Services
In order to deliver these services, we have 40 plus staff based in three main offices. The organisations headquarters is now based in Sheffield, services in West Yorkshire are currently being delivered by staff based in the old headquarters in Wakefield and we have an office in Hull. We also have satellite offices based within hostels in Doncaster and Bradford.
I am hopeful that this gives a clearer idea of what we do and how we do it, if you need any further details on any of our work, please hesitate to get in touch, my contact details are below.
David Blagden
Head of Safe Haven
Unit 1 Turner Business Park
Richmond Park Road
Handsworth
Sheffield
S13 8HT.
Telephone Number 0114 2561033 or mobile 07968 427241.