Cromwood was set up in 2002 to address the social housing crisis, both in London and Greater Manchester. Since then we have been working in partnership with local authorities to meet their varying housing demands.
As a registered provider (RP) of social housing, we are working with both local and central government to house people who are vulnerable due to homelessness. The key cohort groups that we concentrate on housing are those that are homeless, sleeping rough, seeking asylum and those fleeing domestic violence.
We have worked hard to establish a close relationship between our corporate strategy, our social & environmental impact and our purpose. This strategic alignment between our core business activities and our social impact aspirations allows us to deliver on our social purpose.
We have recently redefined our ‘social purpose’ to better reflect this strategic alignment. It is now at the core of what we do, and it is a ‘purpose’ that our staff and stakeholders passionately share with us.
Our social purpose can be summarised by the following statement:
“Provide accommodation that someone can call home, where they can rest, receive support and plan for the future”
This statement captures the core components of our business activities; to provide accommodation; facilitate support; promote well-being and independence. The statement also captures the essence of our social impact drive – to house cohorts who are vulnerable due to homelessness.
Our experience shows that a permanent address is the fundamental catalyst to helping vulnerable people become self-reliant. Detailed below is a breakdown of how delivering our social purpose enables this chain reaction.
“Provide accommodation that someone can call home”;
- In order to fully include people into society, you have to validate their existence. A key requisite condition for this is a permanent address. By providing a place someone can call home they are no longer sleeping rough, begging on the street, at risk of physical and verbal abuse.
“where they can rest”;
- Once someone is off the street and they have a roof over their head, they are able to take stock of their life and start making constructive decisions to rebuild or build new, their life. They can now establish support networks, re-connect with friends or family.
“receive support”;
- A permanent address enables registration with local GP and allows clinical and mental health professionals to deliver support services. Community intervention and expertise can help with facilitating training & employment as well as health and wellbeing.
“plan for the future”:
- Providing accommodation allows someone to start their journey from vulnerability to self-reliance and independence.
We understand that a lot is expected from us; our tenants look to us for accommodation and support; our employees look to us for a connection beyond just ‘work’ and our suppliers look to us for guidance and direction. We simply want to inspire the industry through our passion to deliver on our social purpose.