The Almshouse Association is delighted to welcome the British community activist Patrick Vernon OBE as an Ambassador for The Almshouse Association.

As an influential social commentator, campaigner and cultural historian of Jamaican heritage, The Almshouse Association believes that Patrick can play a prominent role in increasing diversity in local communities and help the organisation to grow and adjust to changes that will better reflect today’s local housing needs.

“We are delighted to welcome Patrick to the almshouse movement. With Patrick’s 20 years of working across mental and public health, heritage and race equality, and because of his influence across the voluntary and local government sectors”, says Nick Phillips, CEO of The Almshouse Association, “we feel he will be the ideal person to help us raise the profile of almshouses and their importance to local communities; give us a voice in the current housing agenda, and take us forward as a significant and very relevant solution to the housing needs of today. Patrick will bring new thinking at an important time for us – as our membership is expanding and we are seeing increased interest in our model of community housing.”

In response to his appointment, Patrick Vernon says:

“I am extremely pleased to have been asked to lend my experience and support to The Almshouse Association. I am well aware of the existence of almshouses and believe that they can be great assets. I am greatly encouraged by the progress being made to reflect the changing demographics in local communities, and excited to see The Almshouse Association’s new building programme that is being so well designed in every way to fit the housing needs of the twenty first century and beyond.”

Posted September 2020

Patrick Vernon OBE. Biographical details
Patrick was born in the constituency where Enoch Powell was an MP. His family still lives in Wolverhampton and he is proud of his roots and the contribution of migrant communities from the Windrush Generation have made to Britain which forms a larger of his values and principles – Windrush Day Matters.

Patrick is a Clore and Winston Churchill Fellow, Fellow at Imperial War Museum, fellow of Royal Historical Society and former Associate fellow for the department of history of medicine at Warwick University. He has over twenty years’ senior experience working across mental health, public health, heritage and race equality and is well known in health, local government and the voluntary sector.

Patrick is currently Associate Director for Connected Communities at the Centre for Ageing Better, Equality and Diversity Adviser to Lambeth Council, Chair of Citizens Partnership for Healthcare Investigation Branch (HSIB) and Senior Associate at OLMEC. He was the first director of Black Thrive a mental-health multi-agency tackling mental health in Lambeth, former non-executive director of Camden and Islington Mental Health Foundation Trust, Health Partnership Coordinator for National Housing Federation, former director of Afiya Trust, committee member of Healthwatch England, NHS England Equality Diversity Council, director of Brent Health Action Zone and regional director for MIND. Patrick was former Independent Chair of Westminster Partnership for Race Equality where he played a key role with the Met Police and the Muslim community with the aftermath of 7/7 bombings in Westminster in 2005.

He is a former member of the Labour and the Coalition Government Ministerial Advisory for Mental Health. Patrick was a former councillor in Hackney between 2006- 2014 and was appointed by Jeremy Corbyn as Race Equalities Adviser to the Shadow Equalities Ministerial Team between 2015 to 2017.Patrick is also founder of Every Generation Media and 100 Great Black Britons, which develops education programmes, publications and films on cultural heritage and family history. Patrick was made Pioneer of the Nation for Cultural History by the Queen in 2003. He is a leading expert on African and Caribbean genealogy in the UK. In 2017 was appointed editor for Black History Month magazine (2017 and 2018 magazines) and in 2018 for Windrush Commemorative magazine.

Since 2010 Patrick has been leading the campaign for Windrush Day and in 2018 kick started the campaign for an amnesty for the Windrush Generation as part of the Windrush Scandal which led to a government U-turn in immigration policy and resignation of Amber Rudd as Home Secretary. Patrick was awarded an OBE in 2012 for his work in tackling health inequalities for ethnic minority communities in Britain. In 2018 Patrick was an honorary PhD by Wolverhampton University for his work on migration history and equalities.
Patrick is a Patron of ACCI a long established black mental health charity in Wolverhampton and Patron of Santé a social enterprise in Camden which supports and befriends refugees and asylum seekers across London. Patrick is Vice Chair of the Bernie Grant Trust and a board member of 38 Degrees.
And as news item is posted , Patrick has just featured in the in Vogue September 20 edition named in the top 20 remarkable activists.