Derby News has been writing about Derventio Housing Trust CIC since 2019 highlighting many concerning issues about its finances and the level of payments to senior managers, including the Managing Director, Sarah Hernandez.

• Darley Park concert 10p ticket contribution to Derventio Housing – helping the homeless, or the highly paid?
• Derventio Housing’s housing benefit ‘cash machine’ now funds 3 Directors on nearly £100k salary each.
• Derventio Housing’s “cash machine” raises further questions for the Regulator. Will they take legal action?
• Derventio Housing Trust: Time for the Council to investigate.
• Derby Homes wastes public money on duplicated Derventio Housing “project”.
• Derventio’s maintenance “subsidiary” profitable for its shareholders – and cash rich!

The “cash machine” continues.

The business model is based on leasing private properties to provide supported housing to the more vulnerable members of society. This draws in enhanced housing benefits on the assumption that the tenant receives substantial personal support from Derventio staff.

2024 has been another bumper year for Derventio with:

• Turnover increasing by 15% to £10m
• Number of employees reducing by 3 to 69
• Number of properties supported increasing by 10%
• Cash in the bank has increasing by 10% to £1.2m ( this is after paying off a £250k bank loan)

This is on top of the bumper year for Homes2Opportunties, the de facto maintenance provider subsidiary of Derventio Housing owned by Sarah Hernandez and fronted by her partner, Matthew Fletcher. Hernandez resigned after the Derby News article exposing the fact that considerable funds ( over £1m by 2021) had been siphoned out of Derventio Housing into the less than transparent Homes2Opportunities Ltd

Surprisingly, Derventio has been shortlisted in the Homelessness Project of the Year category of the UK Housing Awards (26th November 2024) for its Homes4Me project funded by Derby Homes to the value of £73,036; this is in the context of there being fewer people in the business.

The awards evening in Manchester is a “party” event with tickets costing up to £400 each – paid personally or from public funds?

Comment

More properties, and less staff means that the support offered is continuing to be diluted. Sources have reported that each person should get one hour per week, but, reports suggest that get just 15 minutes

In the press release for the Housing Awards, Jackie Carpenter, assistant director of strategy for Derventio Housing Trust, said, with unintentional irony:

“..residents were also supported against predatory “cuckoos” – people who prey on the vulnerable by winning their trust before starting to control their lives and eventually, often kicking them out of their homes”

It is about time that Derby City Council and Derby Homes conducted a full independent audit of Derventio Housing Trust to ensure that its multi-million pound consumption of public money is transparently legitimate and assess whether the exorbitant salaries to senior managers are truly justified.

Some homeless people may be seen to benefit from Derventio’s interventions but how many are being seriously disadvantaged by this diversion of funds that could be more effectively used elsewhere in the City.