Blog by John Pierce, Campaigns Manager at the National Housing Federation.
On Friday 30 August, we celebrated our fourth Starts at Home Day. Hundreds of housing associations staff and tenants joined the campaign to showcase the value of supported housing.
Charity Digital News reported the day as a ‘great example of charities banding together on social media to influence funding policy by showcasing the great work they do’.
Support for the day grew this year including backing by Home England.
We’re supporting @natfednews #StartsAtHome which celebrates supported housing & the positive impact it has:https://t.co/jwnfM0RR5R We’re #MakingHomesHappen via housing association strategic partnerships, delivering hundreds of thousands additional, affordable homes across England pic.twitter.com/uqaJVb2fRc
— Homes England (@HomesEngland) August 30, 2019
We were delighted by support from across the country and it was an incredible day of action that powerfully championed how vital supported housing is.
Some of our own highlights include:
- 722 tweets sent on Starts at Home day with the #StartsAtHome hashtag, from all over the country, generating a potential 2.4m impressions!
- This included tweets from MPs and Government agencies, with almost 10 MPs visiting schemes.
- The Starts at Home website had 33% more page views on Starts at Home day 2019, compared with Starts at Home day 2018,
- The single biggest source of traffic to the Starts at Home website on Starts at Home Day was social media – so thank you for all your tweets (they worked!)
- Popular topics highlight just what Starts at Home day is all about: ‘supported housing’, ‘lives’, ‘celebrating’, ‘work’, ‘residents’, ‘independence’, ‘story’ and ‘team’
The Starts at Home campaign has shown us that there is huge value in taking the time to explain what supported housing is, and showcase its positive impact on thousands of lives.