The Department for International Development has agreed to contribute £7m to a global housing charity fund that is the brainchild of the British housing association sector.
Homeless International – backed by Riverside, London and Quadrant and many RSLs – will launch the fund at the CIH conference at Harrogate, with the aim of raising £1m from the housing sector over the next three years.

The money raised will be used to provide "enabling finance" in the form of bridging loans and guarantees, to locally planned and managed projects in developing countries.

Bill Payne, chief executive of Yorkshire Community Housing and chairman of Homeless International, said: "The aim isn't to say 'here's some money, do as you wish'. It's more 'develop a business plan, use local networks and then you can have the funding from us'."

Payne added that there was no risk to RSLs and other housing bodies that wanted to contribute to CLIFF, other then the initial funding they put up.

Source

Housing Today