Leeds Empties – what’s the big idea?

Rob Greenland
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More than 5,000 homes in Leeds have been empty for more than six months.  Leeds Empties are developing a range of ways to bring empty properties back into use. The first Leeds Empties Week starts today and each day has a different focus. Rob Greenland kicks off a busy week by explaining the big idea behind the initiative.

 
 
 

I wrote a blogpost for the RSA earlier this week about Leeds Empties Week – which we’re hosting this week. The title they gave the post – The Big Idea – got me thinking – what is the Big Idea behind what we’re doing? Let me try to explain….

 
We decided to change how we work 18 months ago. We made three main changes:
 
Up til then, we’d been social enterprise support “generalists” – working with people on lots of different issues at once. We decided we’d focus on one specific issue for a while.
 We decided to proactively seek out other people who could create change – not just social enterprises
. We decided to focus on Leeds – and how we could help make our city a better place to live in
 
As luck would have it, just as we were talking about how we’d change, George Clarke popped up on Channel 4 with his Property Scandal programme. We knew nothing about empty homes. But our instinct told us that this would be a good first issue to focus on.
 
I’ve written elsewhere about what we’ve done so far with Leeds Empties – and you can see what we’re up to this week here.  But it’s worth thinking about what’s behind the approach we’ve taken so far.
 
Ultimately, what drives Gill and myself is the belief that as a society we’ve got to get a lot better at solving complex social problems. Wherever you look, there are big, big issues that aren’t going to go away any time soon. How we can get access to decent housing, climate change, how we help people to live decent lives in older age, increasing levels of obesity…. – I could go on all day.
 
None of these issues has a simple solution. Instead, our belief is that we need a range of people working on a wide range of enterprising solutions to tackling the problem at hand. This is where we think we can help.
 
We think there are five stages to our work:
 
Look for clues – understand the problem and work out where there may be opportunities to make a difference
Create a buzz – generate interest in the issue
. Bring people together – invite people to share ideas
 Build momentum – get behind people with good ideas
Make things happen – turn ideas into action
It’s all about helping other people to make a difference. Our role is as “connectors” – in the middle of it all joining the dots, introducing people to each other, encouraging collaboration and giving people timely support where they need it.
 
One important part of our work is to get behind some of the good stuff that is already happening. Leeds City Council works hard to bring empty properties back into use – and they plan to do more – such as increasing the Council Tax to 150% on properties that have been empty for two years or more. Social enterprises like LATCH and Canopy do great work bringing homes back into use. But the scale of the problem we face around housing need – not just in Leeds – means we need to work out ways to do more – often on shoestring budgets.
 
There’s plenty still to do – but we really think we’re onto something. In a small way, I think we’re tapping into a feeling a lot of us have at the moment. We live in difficult times. It’s easy to feel helpless. Politicians seem as lost as the rest of us, and we’re not sure we trust 'Big Business' to make things better either.
 
But, given the chance, there are lots of us who would like to offer the skills, expertise, time and resources required to solve some of the problems we face. But acting alone doesn’t feel like an option. Our aim is to bring people together to create significant change. And we want to do this first with empty homes – and then we’ll start the process all over again – looking for clues on how to solve the next big social issue.