Our work Best practice resources Community-Based Approaches Action on Empty Homes has run two major projects to spread community-based regeneration in areas with high levels of empty homes. We first followed demonstration projects where community-based organisations are bringing empty homes into use over a three year period from 2016 to 2019. Folowong this a further project running until 2021 developed a Community Action on Empty Homes Toolkit for council and communities working in partnership to bring empty homes into use to meet local housing needs. Our aim is always to understand what works best, as well as the challenges projects face. We want to share their experiences, to encourage other organisations and areas to look at how community-based regeneration could work in their neighbourhoods. Building the case for investment Our projects are also about building the case for a new Government investment programme targeted at areas with high levels of empty homes, to support community-based neighbourhood improvement approaches that refurbish empty properties and tackle the underlying causes of the high levels of empty homes in those areas, as well as the wider issues communities face. Building the case for communities The high level of empty homes and poor standard of housing in these areas is just as much part of the housing crisis as the extreme affordability gap in high-value areas. Furthermore many of these areas still experience long waiting lists for good quality social homes. This project is about showing that the problems that exist in these areas can be effectively tackled through approaches which recognise why properties remain empty in these neighbourhoods. We have produced two reports on this work tracking projects actively working to bring empty homes into use and learning from their experiences and our Community Action on Empty Homes Toolkit is now available for use by local councils and communities. Our first report shared some early learning progress and introduced the demonstration projects. Our second report looked at learning and best practice from across the whole three-year project and produced a series of recommendations for action. This was published on May 2nd 2019. Download the reports by clicking the links or the document images above. For more information, please contact: Brighid Carey Project Manager email: [email protected] As well as reports on our work with community-based demonstration projects, bringing empty homes into use, this area will feature our upcoming Best Practise Toolkits: Local authority officers can download the Legal Toolkit which looks at the enforcement avenues open to local council officers working to bring empty homes back into use and contains case studies and an evaluation of which powers fit which situations best.