Over the Autumn CASH member Jen Orlins has participated in the Lewisham Change Makers course (with baby Micah) ran by @facework and @lewishamHomes. Lewisham Changemakers is a programme and network for social entrepreneurs, charities, community groups and local businesses who wish to create or grow a social enterprise in the borough of Lewisham.

Jen signed up with a view to reflecting on CASH as a social enterprise and to learn more about writing a business plan. The cohort of twenty people on the course are all working on projects that are so heartfelt and the first meeting was quite emotional. With all of their being, they want to see changes happen. The connection with their communities and projects is powerful, driven by huge depth and variety of life experience. Being part of this course community, Jen felt her commitment to making a change through CASH was affirmed.

Jen learned about business planning, marketing, finance and resilience. She has also gained confidence in speaking to different people about CASH’s projects and received very positive feedback on what we are doing.

The final session was a ‘pitch night’, attended by the Lewisham Deputy Mayor, Brenda Dacres and other borough representatives. Being able to talk to people who can support our projects face to face was invaluable.

Great supportive connections were made within the group and across Lewisham Borough organisations, as well as bringing ideas back to our community land trust. There are plans to keep meeting and connect with previous and future Changemakers participants. Thanks so much Stephen Carrick-Davies for facilitating such an inspiring course.

We are a community land trust based in Lewisham and our aim is to create housing co-operatives.

Why housing co-operatives? For those of us who will never own our own homes, co-operatives deliver the same value and more. When communities manage their housing democratically, the benefits to wellbeing are huge. If all housing was co-operative, there would be no housing crisis.

Why community land trust? We want to own the freehold of the properties we establish, to ensure land is locked into the community forever.

How will we do this? Our model means that we can offer housing co-operatives a cheaper deal and more expertise than they would get on their own. In return, we have a lease agreements with them, meaning we can go on to set up more and more co-operatives.

What does the future hold for us? We would love to partner with a registered provider of social housing to deliver our next affordable housing co-operative project. We can offer our community led approach and housing co-operative experts in return for access to affordable properties.

There are 24 housing co-operatives in Lewisham, with rents as low as 100 a week. We want to create at least 5 more in the next 5 years.

It was a crisp Thursday evening in Bethnal Green at the Pelican House. Different types of co-ops from across London had gathered to share their secrets of financial modeling in the popular format of the ‘speed date’. Radical Routes opened with a great talk on different types of loans and modeling possibilities for building cooperatives, to get everyone in the mood the evenings festivities. Abby, Herta and George from CASH, raced around the different groups of eager participants, explaining CASH’s financial model, answering questions and sharing in the mutual cooperative glee. We were humbly reminded of the necessity for co-ops in our times, and the role that CASH serves in challenging the despondent mess of the rental market. Gathering with so many optimistic folk, all working hard to do their bit, we left thrilled with the knowledge that the cooperative movement is here and happening. 

It is an unusual thing for finance meetings to bring people together in delighted evening meets, however strangely at CASH this has in fact been the case. The finance circle has been ON IT, gathering regularly at Nettle Road, having evening teas and paying the bills for our beloved land trust. We are proud to report the domain name has been re-payed, our workshop invoices settled and funding discussed. These may sound like mundane activities but they have become fond routine for our circle members. So what are the highlights? We are continuing to work on our national lottery fund application - figuring out how to provide evidence for the need of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in the cooperative sector so we can get cracking on our workshops promoting such wonderful values. We also been exploring the amount of surplus capital held in co-ops in Lewisham. Amongst all our enthusiastic efforts, the financial circle will plough on, excited to deliver more reports from our cherished group.

Our Equalities / equity, diversity and inclusion research project, with a focus on how we can make cooperative housing, kicked off in November last year with a workshop delivered by the EDI specialist Milka Fisiha! A huge thank you to everyone who attended and shared their views and experience. The workshop was attended by over 15 people from across the city, all learning and feeding into what inclusive housing could look like.

Before we even touched on housing, we went through the meaning of EDI, including the importance of ‘Equity’ and considering different starting points when trying to achieve fairness. We also learned all about intersectionality, a term coined by the black feminist Kimberlé Crenshaw to help understand how different types of oppression interact with one another.

As the session went on our different experiences fed into discussions on the importance of inclusivity when driving diversity. Having people from different backgrounds in the same room is crucial to drive change, but if we don’t create inclusive and accessible environments, it becomes meaningless. This becomes truly visible when we don’t invest in the right infrastructure / resources limiting who has access to the room to begin with. We also discussed the accessibility of cooperatives, how a lot of co-ops are hidden / it’s hard to get into them and needing to focus more on this, especially as the cooperative movement expands.

Chima closed the session with a poem highlighting the main takeaways of the workshop, check out our Instagram to see hear the poem (post from 12 November 2023): https://www.instagram.com/ldncash?igsh=MTFyeWcwOGIxb21yeg==

If you or anyone you know wants to be involved in Inclusive Co-ops contact Herta: herta.g@ldn.cash & Esra esra.a@ldn.cash

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