Volunteering
Guide to Volunteering with Empty Homes
Empty Homes is a campaigning charity dedicated to the problem of the country’s 700,000 empty homes and ways to get them back into use for those in need of housing.
We have always welcomed volunteers who are willing to give up some of their own time to help us.
Activities
The sorts of activities which volunteers can get involved in do vary from time to time as it depends what is going on and what projects and campaign issues we are working on. A few examples of what recent volunteers have done are:
- Researching information on estates of empty homes around the country, including freedom of information requests
- Collating government statistics on empty homes across the whole country
- Assisting the smooth running of our training workshops
- Updating a contacts database
- helping to organise a campaign activity
- looking into use of social media for campaign issues
- Working up case studies with interviews and photographs
- Researching new aspects of empty housing for possible future projects
Our main concern is to match the particular skills and interests of potential volunteers with tasks that need doing at the time.
Practicalities
Volunteers will normally be based in our offices near Waterloo Station in London SE1 and will be with our small team of office-based staff. Sometimes it is possible to organise volunteering from home, but generally only as a supplement to being in the office.
For volunteers who join us, we will reimburse travel costs to and from the office, and as required for any visits you undertake for us.
The usual pattern of volunteer time averages one or two days a week, but we are flexible in reaching an arrangement which suits you and us. You would usually need to be able to be with us for at least 3 months.
Many of our volunteers have found that their time with us has helped them in their search for paid employment. Whilst we are careful to ensure volunteers do not carry out the normal work of Empty Homes, we encourage volunteers’ involvement in all that goes on so that they get the most from the experience.
Before you and we make any commitment for volunteering, we will have an informal discussion with you to describe more fully what we do and what you could do and answer any questions you may have.
If you are interested
If you would like to know more, then please email your cv to info@emptyhomes.com, and let us know if you have any particular areas of interest or experience – for example in housing issues, that you think might be relevant. We will contact you if any appropriate volunteer vacancy arises.
