People's Health Trust joins West Midlands Funders Network

People's Health Trust is delighted to join the West Midlands Funders Network.

The Trust works with communities to stop people dying too young and to help people live longer, healthier lives. We focus on improving the unfair and avoidable conditions in which the most disadvantaged work and live, including income, work, discrimination and access to natural spaces.

One of the most important factors affecting people’s health is their housing conditions. That’s why this year we launched Better Homes Better Health, a major new programme focused on improving housing conditions and health for tenants across Birmingham and the Black Country. Over the next three years, £1.5 million will be invested to support community-led action on issues directly affecting the health of local tenants: damp and mould, cold homes, overcrowding, disrepair and insecurity. This programme is principally funded by Oak Foundation, alongside a contribution by the Trust, with further funding sought to boost the programme’s reach.

Our new work builds on the Trust’s Homes for Health programme, which showed that relatively modest, flexible and targeted neighbourhood investment can enable communities to take action to improve conditions and improve poor health caused by insecure and unsafe housing.

Helen, a tenant in Wales supported through Homes for Health, reflected on the change caused by the programme: "In my own personal life, it’s been a massive help for my mental health and confidence. The tenant action team was almost like a breath of fresh air for me and for everyone else because when people come along and they talk to other people they realise they can actually do something. What a change it makes.”

Through Better Homes Better Health our focus is on tenants in Birmingham, Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton, but we know that people need support in other neighbourhoods and communities. We’d like to expand the programme to reach more people in the West Midlands, including in Coventry and Solihull, which are not yet funded, and we welcome conversations with prospective partners interested in supporting the expansion of the programme to improve the health of more tenants.

To find out more, contact Max Rutherford, Director of Programmes and Influencing, at Max.Rutherford@peopleshealthtrust.org.uk or 020 4548 0934.