Putting Young People's Needs First - Scottish Housing Day Kick Off
Scottish Housing Day kicks off on 19 September this year.
We are proud supporters of the event and are delighted to help raise awareness of the great work taking place in the housebuilding sector, involving a good number of our clients and charitable organisations.
A significant part of the work that our housebuilding team does involves the delivery of affordable housing across Scotland. That ranges from acting for Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) to contractors that are building homes for RSLs.
This year’s Scottish Housing Day has a focus on putting young people’s housing needs at the heart of Scotland’s economic, environmental and social policy and ties in with various initiatives that we are involved in at the moment to both support young people and reduce homelessness.
Through one particular RSL client we are working with a charitable organisation in Glasgow to identify people from their local communities that might benefit from a work experience placement with us, so they can ‘earn while they learn’. This initiative is not intended for our ‘traditional’ intake of graduate trainees pursuing a career as a lawyer. It is very much aimed at creating work pathways at a professional services firm in a supporting role, which can mean a number of important jobs ranging from administration, HR, Marketing through to IT.
We continue to support the drive to house the homeless through our relationship with social enterprise Street Soccer Scotland, which started in 2013. Street Soccer Scotland uses football as a means of providing hope and opportunity for those affected by homelessness. The Homeless World Cup brings together more than 500 players from 50+ countries around the world who have experienced homelessness and social marginalisation. Through our ongoing partnership with Street Soccer Scotland, Burness Paull has been sponsors of Team Scotland for the last three years - when the event was in Glasgow in 2016, Oslo last year and this year as the team travel to Mexico.
One of the next big projects for David Duke and the team at Street Soccer is the Change Centre, aiming to create a safe place where homeless people play sport, meet others in similar situations and receive support to help them rebuild their lives.
By engaging in the communities where our clients are delivering new homes and helping tackle the problem of homelessness, we hope to be able to support young people who might otherwise not have an opportunity to find a stable job and home in the areas they have grown up in.
For more information on these initiatives and how Burness Paull can help to deliver new homes please contact Scott Peterkin, Partner.
