History

Southdown has been supporting vulnerable people in the South of England for more than three decades.

The organisation began in 1972 as a small voluntary group providing housing for people using mental health services. The group had links with mental health charity MIND but remained small and local for more than fifteen years.

All that changed in 1989 when the organisation – then called Brighton & Hove Area Group Housing Association – took on its first paid staff and began to expand. The client group was widened to include people with learning disabilities and new services were opened.

Renamed Southdown Housing Association in 1996, the organisation continued to grow and develop a wide range of innovative services for the local community: Its high quality housing and specialist support succeeded in giving vulnerable people more independence and greater choice in how they lived.

Today, Southdown has grown to become one of the largest voluntary sector employers in Sussex. Our many services are spread along the South coast from Chichester to Eastbourne, and inland to Crawley, Horsham and Lewes. Contracts with local authorities for East and West Sussex and Brighton and Hove supply most of our income.

Southdown now employs 450 staff and has an excellent reputation for staff training and development. This was underlined in 2005 when our Investor In People accreditation was renewed and we won a national care sector training award for the second time in three years.

Our commitment to high standards means Southdown has also won a number of other accolades. These include being ranked number ten last year in the Sunday Times 100 Best Companies To Work For list and receiving three star ‘exceptional’ accreditation in a scheme, set up alongside the Best Companies list, to acknowledge corporate excellence in the workplace. We were also a runner-up for the Sussex Company of the Year award in 2005 and we have won an International Safety Award from the British Safety Council for two years running.

In 2008, our determination to develop innovative housing, support and employment services across the South of England remains strong – and we continue to grow.