A housing association with about 80,000 homes across London, the South East and the Midlands, formed in 2022 by the merger of Southern Housing Group and Optivo.
Southern Housing is a housing association, a not-for-profit landlord that provides homes at below-market cost. Its website says it provides 80,000 homes, spread across 191 Parliamentary constituencies in London, the South East and the Midlands. Its largest numbers of homes are in places such as Sittingbourne and Sheppey, Hastings and Rye, Bexhill and Battle, the Isle of Wight and Stratford and Bow. It is the largest provider of social homes in 13 local authorities, including Croydon, Wandsworth, Brighton and Hove and Woking. Its figures say general needs rented homes are 57% of its stock and rents are typically 41% of private rents.
The organisation says its mission is to provide "safe, good-quality, affordable housing" that supports residents' wellbeing, continuing the purpose of Samuel Lewis, whose will in 1901 left money to create a charitable housing association. Its history page says Lewis's belief was that private rents were often too high and quality not good enough, and that a key priority today is upgrading older homes to be safe, accessible and energy efficient. No formal values list appeared on the pages we read.
Its history is long. The first estate, 151 flats on Liverpool Road in Islington, opened in 1910 under the Samuel Lewis Trust. Joan Bartlett founded Hearth and Home in 1945 to support older people left homeless by the Blitz, and Maisie Wood founded the Catholic Housing Aid Society in 1955. The Samuel Lewis Trust was renamed Southern Housing Group in 2001. In 2022 it merged with Optivo to form Southern Housing, and in 2026 it marks 125 years. In 2023 it acquired 794 homes from L&Q. Paul Hackett was named to lead the combined organisation at the merger.
We did not find first-hand pages on staff numbers or workplace culture, so we are not describing them. The history page does show an organisation that grew by joining together many small community housing charities, and that now runs a large upgrade programme for older buildings.
Work at a landlord of this size includes housing and neighbourhood officers, repairs and maintenance, surveyors and building safety specialists, retrofit and energy efficiency projects, customer service, financial support and tenancy support teams, and finance, legal and technology functions. Because homes sit in seaside towns, market towns and London boroughs, jobs are spread across the South East as well as the capital. The website is the place to check current structure and leadership.
Website: southernhousing.org.uk
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