About Us

CHS Group is all about people. We’re about the 7,000 people living in our affordable homes. We’re about the 2,000 people who choose to rely on our care, support and community investment services, and about the CHS team of 400 people listening to our customers who make sure we deliver the high quality services they want.

Our History

CHS was founded in 1927 in response to a desperate need for affordable homes in Cambridge. Alarmed by the squalid housing conditions many of the town’s poorest families lived in and the growing council waiting lists following the First World War, members of the United Council of Christian Witness decided to form a Housing Society. Their rallying cry was to provide ‘homes fit to live, within the reach of the lowest wage earner’ and throughout its lifetime, CHS has tried to live up to this aim.

CHS Group is the trading name of The Cambridge Housing Society Ltd, an exempt charity: HMRC Charity no X81275. CHS is a society registered for the benefit of the community with the FCA under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014: registered society no 10457R. Regulator of Social Housing: registered no L0992. Our Governing Board is made up of paid and volunteer members from the local community and is responsible for the overall strategies and policies of CHS. CHS complies fully with the National Housing Federation’s 2015 Code of Governance and its 2012 Code of Conduct.

We are independent and believe we have value as a locally based and geographically focused service provider. This value lies in:

Being more accessible to our customers
Delivering a wide range of appropriate and relevant services to meet local needs and aspirations
Investing in people and communities
Providing services which are distinct from other housing and support providers
Having strong, local and up to date understanding of local needs and markets
Having the capacity and knowledge to engage with stakeholders
Being prepared to develop new services to tackle particular local problems
We have established a test to ensure that any successful partnership proposals improve our ability to meet our objectives.

For regular updates on all our services read the latest issue of our stakeholder newsletter CHS In Focus Spring 2019

The range of services we provide include:

• Low cost rental housing
• Shared Ownership housing
• Homes for private sale
• Support

• Homelessness
• Mental health
• Learning disabilities
• Domestic abuse
• Advice & learning

• Careers advice
• Computer training
• Time banking and time credits
• Care

• Dementia care
• Extra care homes
• Personal care in the home
• Housekeeping

Children playing with wooden food at Sunflower Nursery Cambourne — Childcare

• Children’s nursery places

Click below to find out more about CHS and the difference we make to people's lives

Case stories
Financial information
Standards and policies
Key people
Our achievements

Our customers have some incredible stories. Take a look at how we've helped some of them to transform their lives.

View case stories

View our financial information

We're a transparent organisation. You can view our information here.

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We've made our key service standards and policies available to everyone.

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Our board is made up of a variety of key stakeholders who oversee how we operate.

View our key people

We're proud of what we've achieved as a business. Take a look at some of our key milestones.

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Our Values

Respect

We see people as people and treat everyone with fairness, respect and dignity.

Approach

We put as much emphasis on the way we do things as on what we do.

Partnership

We work hard to develop open communication and equal relationships with our customers, staff and partners which values their contributions and enables us to work together effectively.

Openness

We are open, positive and flexible towards both new ideas and problems and we encourage innovation and creativity that improves the outcomes from our services.

Deliver

We do what we say we will do and are accountable for our actions.

Project 90

We celebrated our 90th anniversary with every part of the CHS community.

During the year each of our teams participated in Project 90 – setting ongoing targets for the 90th year. Here are some examples:

Staff joined residents who also celebrated their 90th year at a tea party at our Langdon House care home
On 10 June 2017, a team from across the organisation cycled around 90 miles, visiting all our residents who share our 90th birthday
Cambridge and County Developments, our development team, planted 90 trees and funded a piece of public art using the 90th anniversary symbol, stone, at our new development in Waterbeach
Our Young Parent Project planted 90 flowers to cheer up their window boxes
Vera James House in Ely collected 90 recipes for a book and calendar
We produced a video about CHS, featuring customers and staff
Our achievement awards celebrated the fantastic successes of our young people in our supported housing schemes
Staff who have worked for CHS for over 10 years were thanked and recognised at our 90^th birthday party
Alex Wood House baked a huge 90^th birthday cake

Important people for CHS

Mayor John Condor

The first Chair of CHS. He was born in Hildersham in 1865 and was Liberal mayor of Cambridge 1926-7.

Dr Alex Wood

The first CHS Hon Treasurer who was Chair from 1937-50. He was a fellow at Emmanuel College, founder of the United Council of Christian Witnesses and a Socialist.

Cllr Dorothy Stevenson

The first CHS Hon Secretary from 1927-33 who went on to Chair the newly formed Hundred Houses Society in 1933.

Clara Rackham

A founder member, the first female Labour Cambridge City Councillor and a feminist.

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