Social and Sustainable Capital (SASC) has made a third investment of £2m to Target Housing, a charity and social landlord working with vulnerable groups across Yorkshire and the Humber.

Established in 1990, Target Housing provides accommodation and support to vulnerable and homeless people who have difficulties sustaining a tenancy. This includes people with complex needs, ex-offenders, those at risk of offending, asylum seekers and people with mental health problems.

With the funds, Target Housing will purchase and refurbish 16 one-and two-bedroom properties in Barnsley and Doncaster, to provide support and accommodation for its beneficiaries.

The charity currently manages around 865 properties and owns 96 of them. SASC’s funding has helped to fund the purchase of 47 of these houses across Sheffield, Doncaster, Rotherham and Hull through two previous loans totalling £5m (£3m in 2020 and £2m in 2021) from SASC’s Social and Sustainable Housing (SASH) fund.

Shaun Needham, CEO of Target Housing said, “Taking on this third investment will enable us to meet the growing housing demand for homes for vulnerable people from commissioners and others in the areas we work. By owning properties, we can switch between one project to another, retain income which helps us to continuously adapt to the neighbourhood.

“Target’s strategy is to grow our owned property portfolio because it gives us total flexibility and it’s cheaper than renting through private landlords. Eventually, through these SASH loans, we will have equity in our portfolio that we can use to expand even more.

“SASC has become a vital, trusted and important partner to Target Housing since we took our first loan. We are really pleased to take this additional funding and look forward to working with SASC for many years to come.”

Ben Rick, Co-Founder and CEO of SASC said, “Target Housing was one of the first social sector organisations to approach us for investment from SASH in 2019 just after it launched. We created the fund to help charities like Target have greater control over their housing portfolio, giving them flexibility, growing their capacity and developing their resilience to enable them to help more disadvantaged individuals. We are delighted that Target recognises that and has returned for further investment.

We have made repeat investments in organisations across our funds, and we believe this is testament not only to the bespoke funding and risk-sharing inherent in a SASC loan, but also a reflection of the partnership approach to working that SASC offers.

As of September 2022, SASH was fully committed, having allocated £64.5m of invested capital to charities across the UK. The successor fund, SASH II, launches this autumn, in order to provide a continuity of funding to frontline providers.

The fund will support charitable organisations that deliver a combination of support and housing move from renting existing housing stock to owning it. SASH II is open for fundraising and targeting £125m.

For more information on Target Housing visit: www.targethousing.org.uk/