Privately-owned house builder to gift 200 homes to tackle homelessness

Essex based house builder, Hill, has announced that it will gift 200 homes to the homeless, as part of a new charitable foundation it has established.

Speaking at an event in London to mark Hill’s 20th anniversary, chief executive Andy Hill said that the firm had set up Hill Group Foundation 200, making a £10m pledge.

The 200 homes, to be delivered for the homeless over the next five years, will be bespoke-designed modular, the house builder explained, each with its own front door and key. They will arrive complete with wardrobes, plates and cutlery – “everything someone would need”.

These homes, which will be delivered across Hill’s geographic patch – from Chichester to Norwich “and everywhere in between” – possess a design life of 60 years. “But they will probably last a lot longer,” Andy Hill said.

He also said the individual properties would not be high density but have “a sense of place”. Hill will deliver the modular properties on small garage sites or pockets of land that could be developed, it said. It will work with local authorities and charities “to bring this into fruition”.

With the move, Andy Hill said he wanted to “give something back”, looking back to when he was made redundant more than 20 years ago – a “life-changing” event. After his redundancy, he moved on to establishing the award-winning business.