Council Homes Acquisition Programme (CHAP)

The Council Homes Acquisition Programme (CHAP) was launched by the Mayor of London on November 17, 2023, to address London's unprecedented homelessness crisis, where one in 50 Londoners (over 170,000 people including 83,000 children) are living in temporary accommodation without a secure home. The programme provides funding to enable London councils or their dedicated delivery bodies to purchase properties and convert them into genuinely affordable social rented housing or temporary accommodation for homeless households. CHAP builds on the success of the Mayor's Right to Buy-back programme, which closed in March 2023, and forms part of the broader Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) 2021-26. The long-term goal is to increase the supply of genuinely affordable homes while helping councils acquire and convert existing properties to meet immediate housing needs.