Award-winning, innovative fund that enables charities to house disadvantaged clients
Social and Sustainable Housing
The first Social and Sustainable Housing fund (SASH) was launched in May 2019 and successfully raised and allocated £64.5m.
Our follow on fund, SASH II, launched in November 2022.
SASH II provides flexible secured loans of between £2 million and £10 million. We look for social sector organisations that have experience of providing both housing and a high degree of support to disadvantaged clients.
SASH aims
To improve the lives of vulnerable individuals by increasing their access to safe, stable and appropriate housing.
To make charitable organisations financially stronger, by helping them to buy housing in a low risk way.
SASH directly addresses 4 SDGs
Many small and medium sized charities who provide accommodation-based support services, struggle to access safe, stable and appropriate housing. This restricts their potential to support disadvantaged individuals and families.
SASH addresses this issue by offering flexible finance to ambitious organisations with experience of managing housing, a history of good financial management and confident leadership.
In the UK, more than 250,000 people are reported to be homeless or living in inadequate homes.
SASH enables charities to purchase residential property and offer safe, stable and appropriate housing to disadvantaged people.
People living in ‘non decent accommodation’ suffer disproportionate levels of physical and mental ill health.
SASH requires all housing to meet Decent Homes Standard.
36% of working age households in the PRS and in receipt of benefit live in non-decent accommodation.
SASH is supporting the expansion of charity sector landlords, who are committed to providing safe, decent and appropriate housing for the life of disadvantaged people they support.
The UK suffers from an acute shortage of decent and affordable housing.
SASH sets a new benchmark for how decent and affordable housing can be made available to the charitable sector and disadvantaged people, who would otherwise be excluded.
SASH portfolio
Impact
£64.5m
Total investment made to date
20
Organisations supported to date
To be eligible for investment an organisation must demonstrate the following:
- Registration as a charity or social purpose organisation
- Based and operating in the United Kingdom
- Delivering housing and support services to vulnerable individuals. These can include (but are not limited to) those fleeing domestic violence, children leaving care, ex-offenders, asylum seekers, people with complex mental health issues and people with addiction issues
- A track record of property and tenancy management
- Recognition of the value of home ownership to their organisation
- An unmet demand for housing for the vulnerable individuals they support
- Local property market knowledge
- Generating measurable social impact
- Annual income over £500,000
- Strong management and governance
We would highly recommend SASC to other housing charities. Taking on social investment was a huge learning curve for us, but the team at SASC has guided and supported us every step of the way, giving us confidence that we are doing the right thing.
Shaun Needham, CEO, Target Housing
