The Scottish Government has announced that it is boosting investment in housing, to increase the number of affordable homes in the country.
Funding worth £105 million is being injected through the Charitable Bond Scheme, helping to provide social landlords with loans. The interest is then reinvested through grants for the social rented sector, increasing the supply of affordable housing further.
Originally, the Scottish Government had committed to providing up to £80 million worth of funding in this financial year, however today’s announcement is showing a funding increase of £25 million. This injection is also working on top of the investment of £260 million that has been delivered through the Charitable Bond programme since its inception in 2014.
Shona Robison, Housing Secretary, said:
“I’m pleased to be increasing our investment in the innovative Charitable Bond programme, providing funding to social landlords so they can deliver affordable homes to benefit the people in their communities.
“We want everyone to have a warm, safe affordable home that meets their needs, and by committing additional funding to the Charitable Bond programme, we are taking yet another step towards our target of delivering 110,000 affordable homes by 2032.”
One of the organisations to benefit will be Kingdom Housing Association, with the scheme helping them to secure a loan that enabled them to deliver over 3300 homes for mid-market and social rent. Kingdom Housing Association’s Executive Director, Ken Tudhope, said:
“The Charitable Bond programme has been really valuable for Kingdom Housing Association. The simple nature of the loans provides us with a unique source of unsecured funding that gives flexibility to our business and supports our development plans.
“This will be the fourth loan we’ve taken through the programme and we plan to utilise the funds across 334 individual construction projects as part of our programme to deliver over 2,000 much needed affordable homes in the next five years.”
