My 18 years as Chief Executive

This year Unity Homes and Enterprise celebrates its 30th anniversary. We were set up as a community housing association at the peak of the Thatcher years to address the needs of black and minority ethnic communities in Leeds.

When I took the reins as chief executive 18 years ago this month, Unity had already established a strong reputation within the BME housing sector.

But I quickly came to the view that, with a few changes to the structure and approach of the organisation, we could do better. We needed to reach out to a wider range of stakeholders, broaden our sphere of activities and deliver more projects. We had to be more ambitious.

Back in 1999, the association had aspirations of doing more regeneration work on top of meeting housing demand. It saw housing as its core business but this is also a means to an end in achieving economic, social and physical regeneration. It wasn’t putting a regeneration strategy into practice and creating a diversity of service.

Unity Enterprise was established as a subsidiary in 2000 to fulfil that objective. It now provides 130 managed workspaces for around 80 local businesses in three centres close to the city centre. In 2016, following a £1.4 million refurbishment programme, Unity Enterprise achieved a financial surplus.

Other socio-economic regeneration activities Unity is proud to have instigated over the years – often in collaboration with partners such as Leeds City Council – include the establishment of a healthy living project, a credit union, an outdoor gym in a local park and a free ATM in an area with a scarcity of banks.

Unity Employment Services was created in 2011 to support our tenants and surrounding communities in accessing local employment and training opportunities. Last year we helped over 70 people into jobs and more than 100 others to access training schemes.

And all of this has happened alongside our central mission of providing more high quality affordable housing.

When I joined Unity, we managed fewer than 700 homes. The association now has responsibility for more than 1,200 properties with advanced plans to increase that number by up to 200 before the end of the decade.

I am immensely proud our tenants now come from all communities and ethnic backgrounds. But we have not forgotten our roots.

As we look back over the three decades of Unity’s existence, we must acknowledge the advances this country has made on equality and diversity. We’ve been progressive in comparison with many other nations.

But to maintain that lead, these issues must return to the top of the policy agenda where they haven’t been of late. We need to be much more proactive in relating policy-making to today’s needs and recognising that the modern world is different to the 1980s.

The United Kingdom faces new challenges which have been exacerbated in the wake of the EU referendum.

We’ve read headlines about a divided nation. We’ve witnessed an increase in anti-immigration views. Cohesion has been challenged in some areas including an increase in hate crime. These events have impacted on the work of organisations like Unity Homes and Enterprise, which are more important now than for many years.

Community housing associations like ours do make a difference, and we hope to make that difference for many years to come.