Susan realised she was an innovator at a very early age. And it all started with a spur of the moment solo trip to Barcelona when she was only 17 years old. With little understanding of the language and culture at a time when wifi and Google Translate wasn’t at your fingertips, Susan well and truly threw herself in the deep end. And she flourished. Just three months later, she left fluent in Spanish and Catalan with a new group of friends, and most importantly a sense of self-belief. “There was something in that experience that gave me the confidence that I can do whatever I put my mind to. So I had a sense of my own worth and potential and ability quite early on.”

Her newfound love of language and self-confidence led her to study business and languages at university, where she found herself on a trajectory towards international business or interpretation. But something stopped her in her tracks. “At 22, there was a clear mark in the road where I changed my mind about the way my career was going to go.” Susan had been teaching languages on a freelance basis which had led her to teaching English as a foreign language, and in turn teaching adult literacy. “I ended up working with people in the most deprived parts of Glasgow. I saw the dignity people lost having to hide behind barriers, and I also saw their potential.” In teaching these individuals, Susan watched them flourish, and loved it. “At that point I made a really conscious choice that I was going to use my professional ability to help people change their lives.”

The realisation took Susan back to another experience, this time during her year abroad in Germany. Whilst there, she felt a responsibility to understand the country’s Nazi history and as a result, got to know an Auschwitz survivor. She would go for tea at his house every 2 weeks, getting to know him and learning about his past. Sometimes, as he’d lean over to pass her a cup, she would see the Auschwitz tattoo poking out from under his shirt. It was a powerful reminder for Susan on the permanent, lifelong impact any one individual could have over another. Susan ended up writing her new friend’s biography for her dissertation, and left Germany knowing that she wanted her impact on others to be an overwhelmingly positive one. “All of the people that I’ve met along the way have informed my thinking and reinforced my purpose.”

With her career trajectory firmly on a new track, Susan began exploring how she could innovate to help people, and she landed on another of her passions, the arts. “I loved the arts, but I couldn’t get a job in it because I didn’t have any qualifications. So I thought I would set up my own business.” Susan founded her first social enterprise, Impact Arts, at the age of 24, and spent the next 18 years transforming countless people’s lives through the arts. It was during this time that a new passion started to come to light for Susan.

Whilst devoting her days to Impact Arts, Susan and her husband began to think about the future. Together they decided to get into property as a way to build wealth for their family. “I became a homes under the hammer property obsessed person. We created a property portfolio and I realised that actually my true passion was arising.” What began as investment into her family’s future slowly began to materialise as an idea for social change. Susan fell in love with property development, and saw an opportunity to turn it into a viable business that could help people. “The sense of home became really important to me and enabling people to have a home. At that point in the private rented sector I saw an opportunity to do something better than what I’d experienced.” After 18 years at Impact Arts, Susan decided to pursue a new path for change. Homes For Good was born.

The number one priority for Homes For Good is to collect properties, turn them into safe and beautiful homes and get them matched to people that need them. Today, Susan and her team manage 600 homes, owning 350 of them, and have housed over 2,500 tenants to date. A minimum of 75% of these tenants have either been on benefits or earned low incomes. “They’re the people who really struggle to get anything decent in the private housing sector and who are at high risk of homelessness because of social housing waitlists. Lots of them have been knocked back so many times, and then they got a home with us.” Susan allows her tenants to stay in their homes as long as they want to, moving out on their own terms. And overall, she sees that their next move is a step in the right direction.

“Our belief is that if your home is the foundation of your life, we give you a safe and beautiful home for as long as you need it. And from there you can start thinking about bettering your relationships, your health, your family and re-engaging with your community. And that’s what we see happen.” Well over half of Homes For Good tenants' next move is a positive one, whether that’s saving enough to buy somewhere, relocating elsewhere for a promotion, moving out with a partner or securing a home from a housing association. Through a secure, high quality home, tenants are given the stability and dignity they need to move forward and the overcome challenges they are facing in their lives. When you consider the fact that around 40% of Homes For Good’s tenants were at a real risk of homelessness prior to moving in, you can understand Susan’s belief in the transformative power of a place to call home.

Since its inception, Susan created a set of values for Homes For Good. These aren’t just marketing tools, they are a compass that guide business decisions every day. One is to always do the right thing. What does that look like in practice? “If we’ve made a mistake that’s cost a landlord money, the right thing to do is for us to pick up the bill on that.” Another is kindness, putting people at the heart of what they do. That looks like keeping rents as affordable as possible when Government legislation and market trends are driving up costs. It also looks like a suite of non-prescriptive support available for landlords and tenants to support their rights and futures.

Susan’s innovative approach that puts impact first earned Homes For Good the renowned UN World Habitat Gold Award in 2023, which recognises the most outstanding and revolutionary housing ideas from across the world. In a full circle moment, Susan found herself back in Barcelona, all those years later on a stage picking up her award.

With social housing waitlists only growing, Susan is on track to further her impact. Homes For Good is on a clear path to scale to over 1000 homes under management and ownership, become 100% self-sustaining as a business, further invest in tenancy support and expand their footprint to other parts of Scotland. For all of Susan's next steps, she will be guided by kindness, integrity and most importantly, the self-belief to innovate.

You can find out more about Homes For Good here

susan aktemel is

relentlessly innovative