SASC is delighted to be part of a cohort of social investors that was chosen by MHCLG and Big Society Capital to receive investment to support the Everyone In crisis. SASC has been responding to the pandemic by supporting borrowers that deliver homelessness services to expand to meet the increased challenge. We are grateful for the additional funding that will be passed onto those organisations through this pilot scheme. 

We spoke to Pioneers Post about the investment:

SASC received a total of £15m from the Big Society Capital/MHCLG pot, which has gone into its existing Social and Sustainable Housing (SASH) fund; the new funding will be used in the same way, although with some additional reporting requirements for SASC.

Created in 2019, SASH lends to specialist charities and social enterprises so they can buy properties themselves to house the vulnerable people they support. That’s important, according to SASC, because local authorities or housing associations often don’t have the specific skills in-house to support people, for example, with addiction issues or who have fled domestic violence. Small yet highly experienced charities, working closely with local authorities, can fill that gap.

Ben Rick, managing director, says: “SASH helps the organisations scale up their operations to meet local need. We believe SASH’s key feature is the way it enables these organisations to own their own housing. Ownership not only gives charities control over how they manage properties best for their clients’ needs; it also builds long-term resilience in these vital organisations by boosting their balance sheets.”

SASC has now fully committed the initial £15m to four organisations and continues to raise capital for the SASH fund, some of which will be allocated to borrowers operating in regions taking part in the Everyone In scheme. (There are nearly 30 other investors in SASH, which has raised a total of £62m to date and expects to announce further funding later this year.)

For SASC, the new pilot shows that the government is putting a great deal of faith into social investment, and it will now be their job to show that the model works – that charities and social enterprises can deliver excellent outcomes.

“The pilot has been set up to test the different ways in which social investment can deliver transitional supported housing and to compare it to the way that local authorities and housing associations address the issue,” explains Rick. “For us at SASC, the real opportunity is for us to demonstrate the unique value of these often overlooked charities that are part of the critical infrastructure in the most deprived areas in the UK.”

The full article is published on Pioneers Post here. Additional coverage of the investment can be read here: