On 19th June the London Ventures team held a Dragons’ Den session with members of the Capital Ambition Board (CAB) in order to short-list concepts identified through London Ventures targeted work around homelessness, housing and temporary accommodation.
There is significant work going on in this area but the challenge is growing, particularly in London:
- London boroughs have spent over £2bn on temporary accommodation over the past 5 years, a 61% share of the overall £3.5bn spend across the UK
- The number of households accepted as homeless in London has increased by 51% since 2011, whilst the national equivalent is 15%
The problems are regional even within London – of the 33 total local authorities, just 10 made up two thirds of the total increase in spend over the past four years. (Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38016728)
London Ventures have worked closely with 100s of organisations including local authorities, charities and businesses to understand the challenges faced and the significant amount of work already happening in the area. Using input from across sectors, we identified over 100 potential solutions to the key challenges. We refined these into a shortlist of 15 concepts that are most complementary to both other initiatives in the sector and local authority priorities. This shortlist was then presented to CAB members at our Dragons’ Den event.
At Dragon’s Den, CAB members gave feedback on these shortlisted concepts and agreed a final list of seven that the London Ventures team will take forward to further development. The team will be providing investment to develop concepts and support local authorities to adapt existing practices implement new solutions.
We look forward to working with a range of organisations to help tackle these issues with sustainable, innovative solutions.
