Homeless charity Crisis is to buy its first rental properties – funded by Lloyds Banking Group – in its bid to become a not-for-profit landlord.

Crisis will start its venture during the next few months, with the ambition to purchase and manage at least 100 properties across London and Newcastle over the next three years, with plans to scale.

Lloyds Banking Group is using £6.9 million of unclaimed funds to pay for the initiative after it failed to trace clients and return this cash; after six years with no client activity, funds can be passed to charities.

Crisis chief executive Matt Downie (pictured) says it will soon be able to start to offer homeless people genuinely affordable, secure homes so that they can rebuild their lives. “At a time when homelessness has reached unprecedented levels, partnerships like this enable us to innovate and do things differently to better meet the challenges we face,” says Downie.

Chronic

However, he adds that with a chronic shortage of genuinely affordable homes trapping thousands of people in a cycle of homelessness, more needs to be done by the UK government to deliver social housing at scale.

The charity has begun to see families seeking support who have young, pre-school age children, and in extreme cases have been forced to sleep in cars or on the streets. With local authorities unable to cope with demand and leaving people unable to access the help they are entitled to, more people on low incomes are being pushed to the brink, says Crisis.

Lloyds Banking Group has already raised more than £5 million for the charity's essential frontline services and helped to set up the social enterprise lettings agency, Good Place Lettings last October, run by Crisis and Homes for Good. This has supported almost 40 people into settled homes, including those at risk or experiencing homelessness.

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