With that in mind, the theme of this year’s SHARE Annual Conference theme is ‘More Than Just a Housing Provider’.

The programme for the three-day conference is looking to address the current economic situation as housing providers are being asked to do more with less than ever before.

This year, SHARE has considered the role of the social rented sector in addressing some of the major challenges tenants and communities are facing.

SHARE has created a bespoke one-day conference session on Friday 24th March, which is suitable for both committee/board members and senior staff.

The keynote speaker at 11am, is going to be renowned Darren McGarvey, an author, musician and social commentator known for his public discussions on Covid, isolation, cost-of-living, food banks, warm banks, strikes and rent freezes. As Scotland emerges from what has been billed as another winter of discontent, he will consider some of the biggest challenges in Scotland at the moment, and the role that the housing sector has in rising to meet those challenges.

After lunch, the next speaker will be Susan Aktemel, founder & executive director of Homes for Good, who will talk about The Future of The Housing Market. Following the Scottish Government’s rent freeze announcement in September 2022, many social housing providers had a re-think about their development plans. Many private landlords indicated they may leave the business altogether and investors started to indicate they were struggling to make projects work. The rent freeze may have been rolled back in the social sector, but Susan will look at if housing associations can continue to address Scotland’s housing crisis under such strained conditions.

The conference is also running three workshops:

• Workshop 1 - The lending picture in times of difficult times
  Stuart Niven, regional director (North), from CAF Bank will give a fuller picture of the position of lenders and lending during such economic difficulties.
• Workshop 2 - Tenancy Sustainment
  Rebecca White, chief executive officer, Your Own Place will talk about what we can learn from Scotland’s neighbours south of the border to see how associations can help tenants cope during the cost of living crisis.
• Workshop 3 - Communication plans for housing associations
  Stuart McDonald, managing director, See Media, will look at how housing associations need to adjust their communications to customers and react to tenant/landlord interactions.

The final plenary on Friday will be shared by Ken Gibb, Professor in Housing Economics (Urban Studies) at University of Glasgow and also director of the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE) and Paul Sweeney, MSP, Scottish Labour Party. They will look at rent controls and the housing sector following the introduction of the Cost of Living (Tenants Protection)(Scotland) Act and how it showed that the Scottish Government was willing to intervene in rent setting processes where necessary. In this final session of the day, they will discuss how rent controls work in practice elsewhere, and what housing associations may need to consider should they become a viable option in the future.

SHARE’s annual conference takes place from the 24th – 26th March The Doubletree Hilton Westerwood Hotel and Spa, in Cumbernauld.

Registration on the Friday starts at 9.30am.

To book for the Friday only click HERE

For the entire conference, click HERE.