Christ the Redeemer, Cambridge

A church in one of the most deprived areas of Cambridge wanted to step up their response to homelessness and teamed up with social enterprise Allia to create a community of six modular homes, providing supported accommodation on unused land in front of the 1960s church building. Each home is manufactured entirely offsite, which means the houses can be moved to another ‘meanwhile’ plot of land when the site is eventually redeveloped.

The modular homes are self-contained one-bedroom mini-houses, made by a social enterprise which trains young and homeless people to build them. Another supplier working with the Housing Executive is MMC Homebuilding in Gloucester, which employs prisoners on day release to construct the modular homes using recycled materials as far as possible.

The church offered the land, local construction companies donated materials and Allia arranged loan finance to buy the modular homes. The houses are managed by another local charity which provides supported accommodation for the six residents, who were all previously homeless.

Six single men who were previously homeless now have a safe, secure and comfortable place to call home, with additional support coming from the vicar, Danny Driver. He is modelling a highly effective way for local churches to use their existing resources to respond relatively quickly to the plight of homeless people. Allia have prepared a toolkit and training to assist other churches with all the steps involved.

Allia have collaborated with a housing association to build another six modular homes in Wisbech, and MMC Homebuilding are working on other sites in the west of England.