Housing associations as anchor institutions: a toolkit

In 2019, the Great Places Commission reported its ten recommendations for creating great places to live. The Commissioners identified a huge opportunity for housing associations as anchor institutions to embrace community wealth-building. 

This toolkit, produced in partnership with the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES), explores just that. It outlines how housing associations can contribute to local communities as community anchors and includes a wide range of practical advice and insight.

It is divided into five sections, across the five pillars of community wealth-building:

• Making financial power work for local places.
• Fair employment and just labour markets.
• Plural ownership of the economy.
• Progressive procurement of goods and services.
• Socially productive use of land and assets.

The final section puts this practice into the wider policy context, linking this progressive action to the sector’s social purpose, and reiterating the role housing associations can play in building back better after coronavirus.