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From Devolution to Delivery: Youth Housing with YMCA

Client: YMCA England & Wales

Year: 2026 onwards

From Devolution to Delivery: Youth Housing with YMCA

The Brief

In January 2026, YMCA England & Wales launched the #BuildingFutures campaign with an ambition to create 10,000 new, genuinely affordable homes for young people, doubling its current housing capacity and helping tackle the youth housing crisis. Against this backdrop, YMCA England & Wales asked Inflect to help the organisation understand the rapidly changing devolution landscape and how it could support this ambition. The brief was to identify the opportunities created by the transfer of greater powers, funding and influence to regional leaders, and help local YMCAs build the relationships needed to turn their housing ambitions into deliverable projects.

The Work

Inflect produced research examining how mayoral devolution, new funding arrangements and local government reform could affect YMCA services, including housing, youth services, skills, health and wellbeing.

Building on this work, we developed a programme of regional support in the East and West Midlands. This included political and stakeholder mapping, regional strategy workshops, tailored messaging and engagement strategies, and practical support around key political moments and events.

In the West Midlands, we developed an engagement programme to help YMCA Heart of England and YMCA Black Country build support for their ambition to deliver 1,000 affordable homes over the next decade.

In the East Midlands, we supported YMCA Derbyshire and regional partners to demonstrate their existing housing model, strengthen their messaging to political stakeholders and make the case for scaling affordable housing delivery across the region.

The Impact

Our work has helped move YMCA from understanding devolution to actively engaging with it. Local YMCAs have clearer propositions for regional decision-makers, stronger plans for political and stakeholder engagement, and a more coordinated approach to positioning YMCA as a delivery partner for affordable housing.

The programme has helped create a platform for YMCA to build relationships with combined authorities, local government, funders and other partners, with the longer-term aim of unlocking land, investment and political support to deliver more genuinely affordable homes for young people.

 

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