About Us

Unity Today

Unity Homes & Enterprise is a Registered Provider (RP) of social housing, with offices in Chapeltown in Leeds.   We currently have about 1300 rented and shared ownership homes, across Leeds and also now Kirklees, with stock concentrations particularly in our core areas of Chapeltown and Holbeck/Beeston.  Our Enterprise arm operates three successful enterprise centres fostering small businesses, one of which is shortly to go through a major refurbishment.  There is a steady new homes development pipeline in place and excellent relationships with Leeds and Kirklees Councils.  Our turnover is £6.8m and our annual investment in new and existing homes is around £6.5m.

There is an experienced and committed Board, a great staff team, a robust 30-year business plan, and good service performance, which we have been able to maintain successfully through the Covid crisis.   We have the highest G1/V1 rating for governance and viability from the Social Housing Regulator.  A lot more detail can be found in our Annual Accounts in the Other Reading section.

Our History

Our history is important to us, and, to understand why, you could not do better than read 30 Years Of Unity that was produced for our 30th anniversary in 2017 (in Other Reading).

We are proud that we remain an independent, community-based organisation, successfully supporting BME communities.  We are affiliated to BME National, along with 45 other BME Housing Associations – all of us part of the highly influential BME housing movement.

Our Future …

…. is something that the new Chief Executive will help us design! We are open to ideas, but we have been doing some thinking on our direction of travel.

Social purpose will remain central to us.  Our (recently reviewed) social purpose statement reads:

“We will fight inequality and empower BME people to improve their lives by creating opportunities and helping to regenerate communities”.

A strong, well-run business will also remain central to us.  Our draft corporate plan summarises our aims in this way:

  1. Excelling at customer service and resident engagement
  2. Improving business and operational performance
  3. Strengthening the business by growth and partnerships and maintaining its health and security
  4. Developing and investing in our social purpose to strengthen breadth and depth
  5. Building resilience through organisational development and HR

We intend to continue to punch above our weight, both in relation to our external impact, and the quality of our core businesses.  That will mean change, and challenge – we understand and expect that.  But we are confident we are in a good place to start the next phase of our journey, and that this will be a great opportunity for a new Chief Executive who shares our ambition.

Our Wider Impact

What we do doesn’t just stop with Unity. Our influence reaches wide into the housing sector, shaping agendas and strategies. We are frequently invited to participate in key forums both regionally and nationally. We especially lead on conversations about equalities and the needs of BME communities, and we aim to be a beacon for the sector.