A housing body that started renting out cheap homes to families in need in Islington and Finsbury at the height of the 1930s Depression has reached its 90th anniversary.

The original Islington Housing Association established in 1933 as social house builders now provides homes over a wider area expanding into neighbouring Shoreditch and Hackney.

It leads the North River Alliance consortium of small specialist housing organisations that has built 3,500 homes north of the Thames in the past 15 years.

The expanded Islington and Shoreditch Housing is “what every housing organisation should be”, Islington Council deputy leader Cllr Diarmaid Ward said.

“It is rooted in their community,” he added. “They have been transforming the lives of ordinary families for 90 years by providing secure and genuinely-affordable homes.”

The anniversary held at the London Art House in Islington attracted 80 tenants including families in properties run by the former Lien Viet organisation, which it merged with in 2019.