Partnerships Migrant & Refugee services As a social landlord, we are not capable of providing all of the services required by migrants and refugees arriving or recently settled in the UK. We, therefore, see the creation of partnerships and the mutually beneficial signposting of customers between partners as the key to tackling social exclusion, growth, innovation, modernisation, cost effectiveness and delivery of customer orientated services. Development Our partnership approach was extended to growth in our core social landlord service when, in June 2021, we entered into a ten-year lease with a private property developer to manage and maintain 21 section 106 units in Stratford – with potentially another 100 in the pipeline. The lease-based approach to development enables Arhag to reduce our exposure to development risk yet enables Arhag to achieve a good return over the life of the leasing agreement. This is yet another example of our commitment and ability to grasp partnership opportunities to tackle housing shortages and enhance our income streams. Employment Through partnering with the Government’s Kickstart programme, targeted at 16–24-year-olds, Arhag has been active in helping to introduce 2 young people to employment opportunities during the year and we are delighted that we were able to offer further opportunities to one of them after the scheme had concluded for them. Social Landlord Groups Since joining as CEO in June 2021, Chris Harris has been positively involved in re-building Arhag’s active participation with other social housing landlord groups including: • g320 – the group of smaller housing associations for London • BME National – a collective of over 45 Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) housing associations working in some of the most disadvantaged parts of the country • BME London Landlords (BMELL) – a collaboration of BME landlords in London to optimise the members’ collective impact and to improve and advocate for better services provided to residents and the wider BME communities. • National Housing Federation (NHF) Following Arhag’s more active participation with BMELL, we were delighted to host the organisation’s Planning Day at The People’s Place in June 2022. Annual Report 2019-2020 13
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