Renting Ready and Rock Training School

with Rock Trust and DJ Alexander

The Rock Trust works to prevent youth homelessness and to support young people to have better futures. We have accommodation, temporary training flats, providing support to young people as they learn the skills they require to move to a more independent way of life. We have a drop in centre with a café, showers and laundry which enables us to provide a safe space for young people to access advice in crisis situations, to receive support and to participate in skill building group work which will help them develop the skills they need for life and work.

Rock Trust provides support for young people to learn how to care for and maintain their own home, we also provide training to help them to get into employment, education and training. We realised that we merged the two, we could train young people to provide a property turnaround service, undertaking tasks for landlords between tenants, to get an empty or used property renting ready.

Rock Trust are a youth homeless service, not a property management company, we do not have access to skilled trade people who can offer training and experience to the young people. DJ Alexander on the other hand, are a company working in the property sector with all of the expertise, skills and contacts we would need.

DJ Alexander were established in the 1980’s and are now Scotland’s largest and most prestigious residential letting agency specialising in the letting, selling and management of quality residential property. With offices in both Edinburgh and Glasgow, they have an unrivalled reputation for professionalism within the market: Combining integrity and energy, with a wealth of experience and expertise. They have been renting and managing properties for 30 years with a portfolio of £1.5bn, around 5,000 properties across Edinburgh and Glasgow, and 25% of Edinburgh’s market share.

Rock Trust and DJ Alexander have worked together to develop a training programme which will be informed and co-delivered by our youth workers and their tradespeople. They have secured property in which we can train young people and they have supported us to access work placements and resources such as tools from their suppliers and contractors.

During the year of the pilot training programme we are undertaking a feasibility study for continuing the training as a social enterprise offering landlords, housing associations and letting agents a professional service for preparing their properties between tenants and getting them renting ready. We hope that this will enable us to move young people into employment, offer employment opportunities, raise income which can fund the training for years to come and provide a valuable and quality service to those who manage property.

Relationships between charity and business don’t always need to be about running marathons or handing over cash donations, although we would never say no. Companies specialising in IT or design may want to spend their team building day improving a charity website, finance companies might offer the spare places at training to charity staff, and recruitment agencies could offer an HR audit. Sometimes there are ways we can work together, blending the expertise and sharing the resources we have to make the most amazing things happen.