ABOUT US

Capital Letters was set up to respond to London’s homelessness crisis. By working in partnership with London councils and private landlords, we help families find a secure and settled home. 

Our free service gives landlords easy and efficient access to suitable tenants across London.  Hundreds of landlords and agents already find tenants through Capital Letters.  

We look for good quality, affordable properties so families can move from temporary accommodation or avoid becoming homeless. We support both families and landlords to make sure the tenancy is successful. 

We partner with property investors to increase the supply of affordable housing in London. We will become a landlord in our own right to offer more homes for homeless families and key workers. We are also launching a housing management service for landlords.  

Capital Letters is a non-profit company with a clear social purpose. We are owned by our member London councils and backed by the Government. 

Company number: 11729699

To find out more, read our corporate strategy.

View our corporate strategy
Handing over keys to a new property

OUR SERVICES

We minimise disruption to homeless people on a council’s waiting list by placing them as locally as possible, helping to reverse the trend in out-of-borough and out-of-London placements. By 2022, we expect to have helped 20,000 homeless households into accommodation.

We are owned by the boroughs we work with, helping to reduce costs through collaborative and efficient ways of working and, wherever possible, to end a council’s statutory homelessness duty.

We provide a high quality one-stop service to landlords and managing agents, offering them fast payment and other incentives.

For Landlords

Over the next three years, Capital Letters will procure accommodation for around 20,000 households for use by our member boroughs. This is supported by £38m MHCLG funding from the Flexible Homelessness Support Grant. The grant enables member boroughs to reduce the costs associated with the procurement of properties.

Capital Letters is a publicly-owned social business that is tasked with providing properties for the many boroughs across the whole of London where the demand for all properties (especially family size ones) is greater than the supply.

Home for rent Icon

Our Vision

Working in partnership to solve the homelessness crisis across the Capital creatively, innovatively, collaboratively and relentlessly.

Block of flats

Our Mission

The first choice partner for the Capital, leading the way to develop long-term sustainable solutions, providing local homes and supporting homeless Londoners to be successful.

Our values

We are the “go to” homeless accommodation service for the CAPITAL.

Collaboration   Accountability   Passion   Integrity   Trust  Agility   Learning

Our Governance

The Borough Representative Body has sovereign responsibility for the governance of the organisation. Its central role is to lead the organisation and approve the strategic business plan and key strategic policies. Membership of the BRB includes one nominated representative from each of the member boroughs.  

Oversight, scrutiny, direction and control of Capital Letters is delegated to the Board of Directors. The Board has responsibility for the governance of the organisation. Its central role is to lead, direct, control, scrutinise and evaluate the organisation’s work. This includes determining strategic direction and key policies, establishing and overseeing control and risk management frameworks, satisfying itself of the integrity of financial information and ensuring the organisation achieves its aims and objectives.

Governance

Our board

The Board is accountable to the Borough Representative Body and is made up of a chair, Jackie Odunoye, and vice chair, Kevin Murphy, who are both appointed by the BRB. There are also five non-executive directors – one from each housing sub-region – and three independent non-executive directors with commercial and business experience. The Board is supported by the chief executive, Sue Coulson. 

Jackie Odunoye
Chair

Jackie
Odunoye

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Denise
Gandy

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Fenella
Beckman

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Julia Newton

Julia
Newton

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Kenneth Beech

Ken
Beech

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Laurence
Coaker

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Paul Doe

Paul
Doe

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Yvonne Murray

Yvonne
Murray

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The Team

The day-to-day running of the organisation is delegated to the chief executive, Sue Coulson, who leads the Executive Team.

Sue Coulson
Chief Executive

Sue
Coulson

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Malcolm-Wilson
Director of Finance

Malcolm
Wilson

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Elizabeth Harper
Director of Operations

Elizabeth Harper

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You can apply for our latest vacancies and find out what it’s like to work here. If you want to know more about what Capital Letters does, you can read our business plan.

Mark Baigent

Mark is as an independent consultant, with over 30 years’ experience in UK public housing and regeneration. He works with local authority clients to deliver estate renewal, town centre regeneration and innovative council-led new build delivery companies.   

In 2018, as interim Director of Housing for Tower Hamlets, he led the establishment of two pan-London collaborative enterprises to provide improved outcomes for homeless families; securing almost £50m in grants from the GLA and MHCLG, and being appointed as Chair of both PLACE Ltd and Capital Letters (London) Ltd. 

Jackie Odunoye

Jackie has been Operational Director of Housing at the London Borough of Redbridge since 2016, where the council has ambitious plans to increase the number of council homes. She has developed a new housing strategy and a fundamental change programme to radically reduce the numbers of families in temporary accommodation. 

Jackie is a qualified accountant and spent 16 years working in local authority finance before becoming a Director and subsequently CEO of Tower Hamlets Housing Action Trust – a government sponsored regeneration vehicle which redeveloped three council housing estates.  

Returning to local government, she led on major housing regeneration schemes and joint ventures with private sector partners, developed a housing strategy for an inner London authority and championed the development of closely aligned housing, planning and regeneration services. She also led on establishing a council’s ALMO and homelessness and lettings service before taking up her current role. 

Denise Gandy

Denise has been Executive Director of Housing Demand at Homes for Haringey since 2014, with responsibility for front line advice and homelessness services, Hearthstone (a specialist domestic violence service) and the procurement and management of temporary accommodation.  

Denise has worked in housing for over 25 years, in a range of frontline and management roles relating primarily to housing needs and homelessness. She has also delivered service improvement projects and worked in strategy development. She is passionate about delivering excellent and inclusive services for households in housing need. 

Fenella Beckman

Fenella is the Head of Housing Services at Lewisham Council and has over 25 years’ experience of working in local government. Fenella is passionate about local government and has worked across several disciplines including housing, economic development, inward investment, innovation and service design, corporate strategy, development of strategic partnerships, corporate performance and change management. Fenella has devoted her career to narrowing the gap in outcomes for citizens and enabling them to live their best lives.

Currently Fenella is responsible for the Housing Needs and Refugee Services, Housing Policy and Partnerships, the procurement and management of Temporary Accommodation Services and the Private Rented Sector Service.

Julia Newton

Julia is a chair, non-executive director and trustee of a number of companies and charities across a range of sectors.  She co-founded marketing agency, Shine Communication, which she helped grow over ten years from a team of two to over sixty, winning many awards including for people development.   

In 2009, Julia was appointed as a business advisor to the BBC One programme Village SOS, which was set up to help some of the UK’s most deprived communities.  She spent a year in a former coal‐mining village helping to raise funds  and set up a sustainable social enterprise. 

Currently Julia chairs GB Taekwondo, the organisation responsible for the preparation, management and performance of British athletes at the Olympic Games, Paralympic Games and at World and European Championships.  She is also founder and chair of the Rural Refugee Network, which has worked both regionally and nationally to resettle refugees from Syria in the UK.  Her areas of specialism include governance, risk management, business start–up and development, strategic leadership, people development and marketing.  Julia is passionate about supporting solutions to the crisis of homelessness and enabling people to start to rebuild their lives. 

Ken Beech

Driven by values, Ken is currently Director of Portfolio Management at Homes England, the government’s housing agency. He has substantial experience of financing housing in the private and social sectors and was previously a board member and vice chair of Tower Hamlets Community Housing.  

Ken is professionally qualified in corporate treasury and banking and has financed businesses of all sizes in most sectors, with a specialism in leveraged buyouts. He has led teams through substantial change and is a passionate advocate for inclusion and social responsibility, with further trustee experience with a children’s counselling charity.

Laurence Coaker

Laurence is the Head of Housing Needs at Brent Council and has over 35 years’ experience of working in Housing. Previously, he led the housing needs service at Harrow Council, where he implemented the “Harrow Model” of prevention of homelessness, which was adopted nationally and helped form future government policy and legislation. He was subsequently seconded to the Department for Communities and Local Government (now MHCLG) as a specialist advisor, where he was part of the team helping local authorities to reduce their use of temporary accommodation by 50%.

Laurence has directly managed and improved front-line council services and has significant experience of partnership working at both regional and local level and has been a member of the Locata Housing Services board for over ten years.

Paul Doe

Paul recently retired from his position as Chief Executive of Shepherds Bush Housing Group after twenty years in the role. Whilst as CEO, he was also a founder member of both Placeshapers, the national network of housing associations, and Homes for Cathy, a group supporting housing associations’ role in homelessness. Paul has also worked for the Housing Corporation and the London boroughs of Richmond upon Thames, Westminster and Hammersmith. He chaired St Mungos for five years during a ten-year period on their Board and has also been chair of Wandle Housing Association. 

Paul was awarded an MBE for services to housing and homelessness in 2016. He remains interested in homelessness with positions on two homelessness charities. 

Yvonne Murray

Yvonne is currently the Director of Housing Assessment and Solutions at London Borough of Croydon, she is responsible for all statutory Homelessness services; Emergency & Temporary Accommodation, Housing Initiatives, Allocations, Income & Lettings, Empty Properties, Right to Buy, Housing Renewals, Service Charges, Tenancy and Caretaking.

Yvonne is passionate about housing and welfare services and how the right interventions at the right time can have a positive impact on the lives of those affected by homelessness. Helping people to have a stable base upon which to improve their life choices and outcomes. She has over 20 years’ experience in local government and has worked with Vulnerable Adults, Special Needs/Resettlement, Housing Advice, NASS/Unaccompanied Minors, Tenancy & Housing Management and Homelessness services.

Sue Coulson

Sue joined Capital Letters in June 2019 as its first chief executive officer. She has extensive experience in social housing, both operationally and as a non executive director, and her driving force has been to make a positive difference, working innovatively and creatively to do so.

Prior to joining Capital Letters, she was director of partnerships at Rentplus and she has held numerous senior level roles in social housing, including as group director of housing and communities at DCH Group and as managing director of Three Valleys Housing and OGL Housing. She is currently a non-executive director of Westward Housing Group.

Malcolm Wilson

A highly motivated, qualified finance professional, with experience in the local government, private and third sectors.  Over the past 25 years he has worked in the housing sector as a Director at a number of housing associations, including three stock transfer start-up businesses, leading a variety of portfolios, including finance, governance, asset management, ICT and new build. He has also been a Board member on a number of housing associations, commercial companies and social enterprises and have particular interest in community regeneration.

In his career he has raised over £1.5 billion of funding for associations to deliver stock transfers, refinancing and new building programmes. 

Currently a local town councillor and secretary to the local chamber of trade

Elizabeth Harper

Elizabeth’s career in the voluntary and charitable sector has had a particular focus on homelessness and supported housing in London and the South.

 

Having held a range of roles which include having had responsibility for quality assurance, safeguarding, new business development, user involvement, volunteering and best practice she has spent the last decade as an Operational Director working collaboratively with Local Authorities to develop and deliver successful services.

She has also worked with organisations internationally to develop their practice in outcomes measurement and advising on homelessness policy implementation and brings a personal as well as professional commitment to endeavouring to make a positive difference to homeless people.