A business model that brings benefits for homeless people: Bird Lovegod

I just read about an incident that happened 25 years ago. A homeless man knocked on the door of a church, asked for help, and was allowed to sleep in the garage.

After a few months, more people joined him, and the church bought a caravan to accommodate them. Until the council told them they weren’t allowed to.

Fast forward a few years, and the church people have pooled their resources and bought a couple of flats in the town to house those in need.

The concept grew, the church people bought homes, housed people, collected the housing benefits, and provided a nurturing environment for the tenants. The project, now called Green Pastures, became a thriving enterprise, named from Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, he maketh me to lie down in green pastures …”

In essence, it’s a buy to let opportunity, homes are bought, vulnerable homeless people housed, and rents paid from housing benefits.

The primary difference is the motivation, the intention. Many landlords rent properties, the aim is to maximise profits, which frequently involves minimising expenses, including on upkeep of the property.

These landlords are profit first, and they probably don’t really care about the tennents. They certainly are not in the business of supporting them emotionally and spiritually and leading them besides still waters and restoring their souls.

In this Christianised version of buy to let, Green Pastures is a curious hybrid of Christian care and rehabilitation facilitated by a property tech / fintech / investment business model.

Green Pastures invites people to lend some of their savings, from £1,000 upwards. The money is used to buy homes, which are rented out to authentically supported vulnerable people, the housing benefits cover the rent, and leave enough money to pay interest on the loan.

The website shows how it works, and nostalgically, has a slider bar (remember Wonga!) that shows how much your investment / loan will pay in interest over different lengths of time. You can even choose how much interest you receive to some extent, presumably some people are happy to receive slightly less interest on the basis that the money is being used to do good.

This alone is an interesting innovation. I wonder how many of us would be willing to receive slightly less interest on our investments if we knew and could see that the difference was being used to transform lives. According to the website GreenPastures.co.uk they currently have £47 million invested, from 1570 investors, housing 1532 people. They’re FCA regulated and they’ve been housing people for 25 years. Solving homelessness requires providing more than a bed and a roof. It requires love, community support, and nurturing care. If it can be done as a profitable investment, run by an organisation as well established and ethical as this, I’m going to look into it further with a view to putting some money there. Perhaps a few thousand for a year or two, to see how it works out.

Bird Lovegod is an entrepreneur and Christian commentator