Westminster Housing Co-op
Westminster Housing Co-op, which operates across the whole of the greater London area, has been in existence for 30 years: borrowing properties from registered social housing associations, councils, developers and individuals, bringing those properties up to standard and then renting them out at as cheaply as possible. WHC house a mixture of key workers, people who have been street homeless, and people who are unable to afford market rents. The co-op operated mostly as a stop gap for people to find permanent accommodation for themselves, but some tenant members have been housed by the group in a number of properties over a period of 30 years. WHC is self-financing through rents and doesn't receive any grants, so unfortunately cannot afford London house prices. However, they decided to borrow money from Triodos to buy a house on the south coast. They are converting this into 6 self-contained units in order to house some of the people who have been with them long term in permanent accommodation
