Why Supported Living?
The housing shortage hits the vulnerable the most. Many local authorities are crying out for additional accommodation and are either having to pay high rents (e.g. hospital beds or hotels) or are housing vulnerable people in accommodation that is not fit for purpose (e.g. bedsits or poor quality supported accommodation).
What is Supported Living?
The supported living market is broad and complex and refers to all exempt housing to individuals with one of three needs:
(1) Supervision;
(2) Support (intensive or low levels);
(3) CQC-registered Care (from floating care as required to full time 4-to-1 care).
Some organisations marketing supported living investments are using Home Office contractors to house asylum seekers. In most areas this is short-term lease model with lower-returns.
Three distinct areas of focus
The supported living sector we work in can be broken down into three key sectors. We house individuals who:
1. Require care from a CQC-registered care provider. For example individuals with learning disabilities, autism, wheel chair users or those with acquired brain injuries who cannot be cared for by their own families, which you typically see with elderly parents who can no longer care for their disabled child. These properties typically require self-contained flats or shared houses with bespoke adaptions and can also work well for larger commercial or care home conversions. This is the lowest risk, long-term and often a high return model.
2. Require support from support workers. For example homeless individuals including those who struggle to sustain a tenancy often find themselves temporarily homeless. These individuals often suffer with mental health issues, addiction and need a lot of support to cook, clean and manage bills. The ultimate goal is for these vulnerable adults to be able to move on to sustain their own residential tenancies and jobs. Properties are typically shared HMOs or blocks of studio flats and often require minor adaptions such as en-suites and/or kitchenettes.
3. No care, no support/ but in some cases could receive minor levels of supervision. Individuals or families who don't need care or support but who require urgent emergency or temporary accommodation due to sudden homelessness. This can works well for investors with properties that they do not want to adapt, or larger-scale hotels/blocks of flats.
Each of these three supported living sub-sector have different lead times, property adaption requirements and expose investors to very different levels of lease terms, risk and rental returns.