“Community power allows us to actually be a lead partner in delivering solutions”: Claude’s story

In the late eighties, Claude Hendrickson led an inspiring community-build project, which saw unemployed African Caribbean men gain construction skills and build homes for themselves and their families in Chapeltown, Leeds. Since then, he has received an MBE for his continued work holding the torch for community-led housing. 

Claude Hendrickson is a community land trust ambassador and accredited community-led housing adviser. He is also an EDI trainer on the Confederation Cooperative Housing (CCH) Four Million Homes program and community engagement lead for the Climate Action Leeds Network.

TRANSCRIPT: I’m based in Chapeltown, Leeds, in West Yorkshire. My real forte is in community-led housing and community land trusts. That is giving power to people by giving them control of the housing, control of land, and control of assets.

Frontline Community South Builds was a project that was set up back in the late eighties when we were facing another housing crisis. Back then, there were a lot of areas in the country that had housing as their number one concern. There was a lot of dereliction and a lot of boarded-up houses. When it comes to housing, young men are actually at the bottom of the housing waiting list. One day, I thought well you’ve got these empty, boarded-up houses, and you’ve got these guys with hands and legs and no skills. If we can train them to get some skills, then they could do up the houses themselves and live in them.

So, 13 of us got together on a project to build our own houses. We laid 92,000 bricks, 52,000 blocks, built a street of 12 houses whilst getting construction training skills, which made us more employable. Back then, everybody said it was kind of a stupid idea for me to try and attempt. Sometimes, I wake up and I can’t believe I’ve actually done it. Since completing that project, I have been a staunch drumbeater for the community-led housing sector for the best part of 30 years.

Community-led housing projects can tackle unemployment

We’ve got a housing crisis. We’ve got high unemployment. We’ve got antisocial behavior by young men. Even in the summer last year (2024), you saw young men on the streets willing to smash up hotels and stuff. Why are we not giving them training and opportunities to build, refurbish, and retrofit houses?

50% to 60% of all homeless men are ex-veterans. They have been institutionalised because they went into the army when they were 18. When they come out in their mid-thirties and they come back to their families, they struggle to reintegrate into society and they end up homeless.  

I see the housing issues that we have right now and I think, why are they not rolling out community-led housing to these people? Empowering them by doing community-led housing can give them an opportunity. Anchor organizations like some of those involved in the We’re Right Here campaign could help deliver that.

I’m a firm believer that we need the next generation. We need to create jobs. We need to create green jobs. There are lots of ways of empowering the community that create ongoing employment. 

If you build your own houses, you have to maintain them and there are jobs in maintaining them. If you have a community center, you still need a caretaker and cleaners—local people can be employed to do these jobs. If you create local employment, nine times out of ten, the people who are employed locally will spend their money locally. It’s about keeping the pound within the community.  

Community power means empowering people to be part of the solution

I’m very much a person who always comes back to: how can we empower people to do for themselves? I’m of African and Caribbean descent. I was born in England. I’m of that first generation of children of Windrush. A lot of the institutions that we, the African Caribbean people, have developed in our communities over the past 50 years were developed around need. We needed youth clubs. We needed buildings so that the elderly could have lunch and a club. We needed an elderly day center for black people. Community power is actually about being part of the solution. There’s always going to be problems in the world, but how can we contribute?

Community power is not just about giving us a voice. A lot of the time, they say ‘Come to this meeting’, or ‘You tell us what you want and we’ll go away and come up with a plan.’ How can we be part of a solution, whether it’s housing, health, or community centers? Community power allows us to actually be a lead partner in delivering solutions.  

For example, if you’ve got children with antisocial behavior happening in an area, those children have got parents that live in the area. So why not empower the parents to be involved in sourcing some kind of activity venues for the young people? It’s about drawing on the skills that the community has. 

I remember back in the early sixties when I was growing up, there was a sense of community. Now it’s a sense of individuality. Empowering communities to take responsibility creates a sense of community. 

New community rights could inspire local people to create positive change

You put a group of people together and they’ll come up with ideas but some of them have been so downtrodden by the system that they don’t believe that they would be given the opportunity. So if there’s a Community Power Act that says to them, listen, this is actually a regulation, local authority has to give you first refusal, etc. then it inspires them to get up and do something themselves.

All strands of the Community Power Act are relevant to me. The first refusal on sites and buildings, the Community Right to Buy, would help us a lot. A commissioner that would double-check that the local authority is doing the right thing but also check that the community group is doing the right thing would make a big difference.

One of the big things for me is the transfer of community assets. Let’s take the local youth club building as an example. All day, whilst the kids are at school and at college, nobody uses that building. It’s a youth building. But if it’s in community stewardship during the daytime, the parents of their children could actually use that for a luncheon club for the elderly. They could use it for a little keep fit class. If the community have control of the building, it can actually have a multipurpose use. 

What we also find is a lot of services work from 9 to 5. Now if you put that building or that strategy into the community, the community can set the time because it can utilise the building when it’s best for that community to be using it. If it needs to be open from 9 in the morning until 10 o’clock at night, then the community will keep it open. 

A strong network of campaign leaders from around the country 

I find the We’re Right Here campaign fantastic because it has brought together like-minded people from around the country to share good practices. It’s empowering our community, but it’s also empowering the individuals. I’m from Leeds and sometimes you can get the feeling that it’s all middle-class, white people that live out in the sticks, when actually it’s urban people like me and Andy Jackson as well. We’ve all got different kinds of community organisations as community champions but I’ve learned so much from the other champions. I’ve been really blessed to be part of the network.

Claude is one of the community leaders who are driving the We’re Right Here campaign. Meet them here.

Get involved in the campaign for community power.