Jewish Blind and Disabled has announced it will be embarking on a £15 million project to redevelop its oldest building, thanks to a unique collaboration with Jewish Care.
Fairacres in East Finchley will be revamped to add 11 more apartments to provide a total of 40 apartments. These will include four two-bedroom flats for families. The current 29 flats will also be extended to ensure that they are all wheelchair friendly.
The project, which is due to start in March, will be partly funded by a multi-million-pound grant from the Greater London Authority (GLA), thanks to JBD’s partnership with the Joel Emanuel Trust, which comes under the Jewish Care umbrella.
Joel Emanuel Trust (JET) - unlike JBD - is a registered provider of social housing (RP), making it eligible for the GLA grant.
The grant is expected to be in the region of £7m, and the rest of the funding for the building project will come from donations and interest free loans from individuals, families, trusts and foundations, said JBD chair Marc Gordon.
He told the JC: “Having just completed an £11m new development in Mill Hill East, we knew that securing the funding required to undertake the much-needed Fairacres project from the community alone was going to be a huge challenge.
“We identified an opportunity to partner with a registered housing provider to secure government funding, which would enable this project to proceed. Jewish Care was the obvious partner for us, and we are delighted that they have agreed to collaborate with us for the wider good of the community.”
Marcus Sperber, chair of Jewish Care said: “At Jewish Care, collaboration with communal partners is a key tenet of our new five-year strategy, Altogether Stronger, because we know we can deliver greater impact for people in our community when we work together. Our commitment to partnership is exactly why we stepped forward to support JBD on the Fairacres redevelopment, a project that is of real significance for the community’s long-term wellbeing.”
For nearly 40 years, Fairacres has provided affordable accommodation to adults of all ages living with physical disability or vision impairment.
JBD said the building was no longer suitable for the level of complex needs of the current tenants.
JBD CEO Lisa Wimborne said: “With 150 households on the JBD housing waiting list the decision to undertake this project wasn’t taken lightly. However, it was deemed as being necessary and the right thing to do for the long-term provision of our tenants’ needs.”
She said that current Fairacres tenants would relocate to JBD’s new Mill Hill East development, Ephraim Court, and would then be given the opportunity to remain in Ephraim Court or to return to Fairacres once the building work is complete, which is expected to be in late 2027.
Tom Copley, Deputy Mayor of London for Housing and Residential Development, said:
“We are really proud to be providing more than £7 million funding to support the redevelopment of Jewish Blind & Disabled’s Fairacres building in East Finchley. This is an exciting and significant affordable housing project which is being delivered in collaboration with the Joel Emanuel Trust, and I look forward to seeing work begin next month on the delivery of 40 high-quality, sustainable and accessible homes to benefit the local community.”
The GLA funding contract requires the grant recipient to be both the landlord of the units and a registered provider of social housing (RP). In order to obtain the funding, JBD will be issuing JET with a long lease for Fairacres.
JBD will continue to both oversee the development and the long-term housing and management services of the property under an agreement with JET.
Gordon said that JBD had secured a further £5m of five-year interest free loans from individual philanthropists from within the community for the building project.
He said that once these were repaid, JBD would “be in a position to find another development opportunity to meet the growing demand for its unique housing and support offering”.
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