IDS has housed four Stamford Hill families in Canvey Island, Essex, where there is a growing Orthodox community, as featured in a BBC documentary this week.
“The families were in absolutely dire housing need,” Ms Wolfe said.
“For one family, the housing conditions were so abysmal, the ceiling had collapsed in one of the rooms where the children were playing. One child had to snatch another child out of the way of falling masonry.
“I handed the keys to the father who said to me: ‘You’ve got to us just in time. We couldn’t have managed another year.’”
IDS was established in 1885 by Nathan Rothschild to improve living conditions for Jews in the overcrowded East End of London and continues to specialise in “culturally specific housing”.
It manages more than 1,000 homes in the borough of Hackney alone, and plans to build more than 500 homes over the next ten years, particularly in areas outside London such as Hertsmere.
