Our vision
To ensure every migrant and refugee in London has a good home, is empowered to safeguard their individual rights, have their voice heard and make a full contribution to their community.
To provide the best housing services to our customers while developing the potential of migrants and refugees in London.
Our values
To achieve our vision and mission, we have adopted five overarching values which underpin our business aims and objectives. These are:
- Trust – We work hard to earn and keep the trust of those we serve.
- Respect – We strive to ensure that everyone feels respected through our actions and the way we communicate.
- Accountability – We recognise that no one is perfect and when mistakes are made, we put our hands up, own the issue and learn from what happened.
- Customer care – We aim to treat everyone like we would like to be treated. We want our residents to feel engaged with us and their needs understood.
- Innovation – We look for ways to make things better and are open to doing things differently through a range of methods including our use of technology.
Our journey
We have achieved much since our inception in 1979 as the African Refugee Housing Action Group Limited. We were set up to respond to an urgent need for housing and support amongst Britain’s fast-growing refugee and migrant communities. From the outset, refugees, and migrants themselves have been active in shaping and developing the organisation.
By 1981 Arhag was housing its first tenants in short-life properties before referring them on to permanent homes with local authorities and other housing associations. As partnerships with local authorities evolved, Arhag began to build and manage its own homes. In the early years, the majority of refugees and migrants Arhag helped were from Africa, but as needs have changed, so have the communities we work with.
In the 40 years since we were founded, the number of properties we own and manage has grown to over 900 including one supported housing scheme for refugees and migrants. We seek continuously to improve the quality of our services to residents and the communities in which we work. We provide important services to a highly diverse client base and strive to make quality homes available that residents can afford. Through our resident and community engagement initiatives, we work to achieve our mission statement.
Our governance
Currently our board comprises 10 independent members, including the Chair. There are two committees, the board the audit & risk committee and the operations Committee.