Catherine West MP joins celebrations for Hornsey Housing Trust  90th Anniversary party and book launch

Catherine West MP joined housing trust tenants and other guests including Haringey councillors and officials at a celebration marking the 90^th Anniversary of Hornsey Housing Trust (the Trust).

The celebration took place at the Trust’s sheltered housing scheme at Margaret Hill House in Crouch End on Thursday 16 November and coincided with the launch of a new book on the Trust’s history.

The book, written by former Trust Chair Rosie Boughton, tells the unique story of the Trust, founded in 1933 by Margaret Hill CBE, whose brother was the renowned economist John Maynard Keynes. Its aim was to operate within the Hornsey area, providing safe and comfortable accommodation to older and vulnerable people.

The Trust has expanded over the years with new developments and although most stock is in the west of the Borough, it also has homes in Tottenham. As an organisation exclusively operating in Haringey, the Trust works in close partnership with the Council to allocate its homes to people in need from their waiting list, the average age of a Trust tenant being 70.  With the older population of Haringey expected to increase by 30% in the next decade, the Trust has a key role to play in providing genuinely affordable homes.

It has previously led on initiatives to help people living with dementia in the borough and has recently co-produced with tenants a new housing design brief for independent living. The Trust is also working on its own new and improved repairs service and is continuing to innovate with a ‘hub’ approach to managing its properties.

Altogether the Trust houses around 420 people in 390 properties around the borough.

 

Speaking at the launch, Catherine West MP said:

“I am delighted that Rosie Boughton’s book coincides with the 90th anniversary of the establishment of the Hornsey Housing Trust. To this day, the Trust provides homes to so many in Haringey, who would find it difficult to live locally, due to inflated house prices which have overtaken ordinary incomes and social security payments. Thank you to Rosie for the hard work as the Chair of Trustees from x to x and for devoting her time in compiling this important local history of a treasured housing provider in Haringey Borough.”

Trust Chief Executive Euan Barr said:

“It is fascinating to look back over 90 years of the Trust and celebrate with our tenants and stakeholders, the people who have shaped the organisation. We look forward positively and with purpose, to continue to offer a place to call home for older local residents. We can learn a lot from our history, and are proud to still hold dear the community-focused ethos upon which we were founded. ”

Author Rosie Boughton said:

“The Trust has grown and developed over its 90 years, from the early days of ‘youthful exuberance’, through consolidating and modernising its housing, to the expansion of sheltered housing in the 1990s, and its recent very welcome new building. Over that time it has provided secure, decent housing at a reasonable rent to several thousand residents of Hornsey and Haringey, and long may it continue to do so. I’ve hugely enjoyed researching and writing this history and hope that those who read it enjoy it too.”

 

 

If any tenants would like a copy of the book ‘A Place to Call Home’, please contact your Housing Officer.