This evaluation piece supported the community partner to attract a London-based social justice charity Commonweal Housing and successfully leveraged a £500,000 loan to pilot the model in practice.

In 2023, this loan was drawn down to acquire 5 homes and enable homeless individuals living in the East Belfast Mission hostel to transition into secure housing. The success of this pilot phase brokered an invitation from the Department of Finance to apply for an additional £2 million loan to scale the model via the Financial Transactions Capital Investment programme. This application required an outline business case, which QCAP co-produced in collaboration with technical input from other relevant partners.

Aidan Byrne, of East Belfast Mission, provided the following testimonial of our work here:

QCAP provided us with crucial technical support in producing a business case for a loan of £2 million to purchase houses for people experiencing homelessness. Due to our capacity, we simply could not have undertaken this work without the support from QCAP. As above the process of undertaking this project was very collegiate and led to an increase of skills and knowledge in our team.

 

To read our full Phase 1 Progress Report, please click on the image link below: