The Empty Spaces to Homes toolkit, developed by Habitat for Humanity Great Britain, offers a step-by step guide for local authorities, charities and organisations wishing to acquire and convert commercial spaces into homes for vulnerable groups to tackle homelessness in their local area.
The charity has also launched an empty space spotter app to accompany the toolkit, which crowdsources the locations of vacant buildings suitable for housing projects to create a database of properties.
An estimated 7,000 commercial buildings across the UK, currently owned by local authorities, have been vacant for more than a year, the charity states, adding that these have the potential to create more than 19,500 residential units. Its research also found that there are an estimated 165,000 empty privately-owned commercial and business premises across the UK.
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