Extended Deadline – Simon Brooke Award 2023 – Call for Submissions

Devise a housing model for young people in Ireland based on international research and best practice.

Simon Brooke was a longstanding advocate of social and affordable housing in Ireland. His passion for the sector and for the provision of high-quality, affordable, secure homes for individuals and families across the country was borne out in his work over many decades. Simon worked in the housing and homelessness sector in the UK from the 1970s and in Ireland from the 1990s. This included a major campaign in the 1980s to close down and rehouse the residents of unhygienic, overcrowded hostels in London and, in 2008, an important evaluation of homeless services in Ireland with the Homeless Agency.

In 1998, Simon joined Clúid Housing, Ireland’s leading Approved Housing Body (AHB), as a board member before becoming Head of Policy in 2012. Simon played a proactive role in developing the AHB sector in Ireland, setting out a clear reform agenda in his 2001 Blue Paper ‘Social Housing for the Future: Can housing associations meet the challenge?’ for the Policy Institute at Trinity College, Dublin.

In his work with Clúid, he became known as a passionate champion of social housing and those living in social housing, and managed a range of important research projects, relating to stigma in social housing, housing for older people, fuel poverty and, most recently, the management of multi-unit housing developments. Importantly, this work had a tangible influence on the development of Irish housing policy and will continue to have lasting impacts.

Up until his untimely death in November 2019, Simon worked tirelessly to break the stigmas attached to social housing and to ensure that everyone in Ireland had a great place to live. Simon’s willingness to challenge the status quo advocating for policy change to improve people’s lives and his drive to collaborate and share knowledge, has shaped the social housing sector for the better. These are the qualities that lead to the creation of the Simon Brooke Award and lecture. It is on this basis that we are calling for essay submissions on the topic of housing challenges faced by young people, aged 18-25, in Ireland today.

Essays should identify the main housing challenges faced by young people in Ireland, along with policy suggestions as to how barriers can be overcome in order to provide social and affordable housing aimed at this cohort. Essays may wish to define a specific age cohort and should touch on areas such as financing, physical design elements, and the necessary support services to make youth housing a success.

It is also possible to focus on a more specific cohort of young people such as students, asylum seekers, migrants, young people with disabilities, or lone parent families.

The author of the winning essay will be awarded the Simon Brooke Award at an event in September. The winner will also win a gift voucher worth €400.

Submission process
Applicants should submit an essay of no more than 2,000 words on the topic set out above. The deadline for applications for the Simon Brooke Award is July 30th 2023 (extended from May 12th). All submissions should be e-mailed to policy@cluid.ie with ‘Simon Brooke Award 2023 Submission’ in the subject line.