Students use expertise to help tackle homelessness

Students from Teesside University have been working alongside housing leaders across the country to try and develop solutions to tackle homelessness.

Five students from the MSc Advanced Home Futures course attended Housing 19 – the Chartered Institute of Housing’s annual event and Europe’s largest housing festival.

The event welcomed keynote speakers, including Prime Minister Theresa May and Mark Farmer, Founding Director and CEO of Cast Consultancy.

It also staged a ‘Homelessness Hackathon’ which brought together George Clarke’s Ministry of Building Innovation and Education (MOBIE) and digital talent from FutureGov to work alongside councils, charities, businesses and housing associations to find solutions to the homelessness challenge.

The ideas were then pitched to camera, with delegates voting on the various solutions. Students Emma Bidgood, Jessica Hughes-Morton, Rachel Jones, Nizhen Phang and Zoe Lainton all took part in the Hackathon sessions alongside course leader Richard Sober.

The MSc Advanced Home Futures is an innovative course at Teesside University, ran in partnership with George Clarke’s MOBIE initiative.

Richard Sober said: 'The Hackathon sessions were very intense and it was fabulous for the students to work on teams alongside housing leaders from all over the country and demonstrate their skills and knowledge to a wider audience.'

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