Loraine Miller - Deputy Housing Manager

Love of buildings leads to housing role

Housing in one way or another has played a large part in Loraine Miller's life - so it's hardly surprising one of her interests is architecture.

'When you look around here, apart from the bricks here, everything else is glass and concrete,' she enthuses on a tour of Westminster Cathedral and its environ - her chosen location for the interview and incidentally her favourite building, due partly to the beautiful brickwork.

As Deputy Housing Manager of the Church of England Pensions Board, a role she has undertaken for 12 months, Loraine has seen pictures of some very interesting Church of England buildings, her wishlist of ones to visit topped by Morley College near Winchester Cathedral.

'At the moment it's a great period of change - a good time to come here,' she continues, pausing from appreciating the cathedral's fabric to talk about her new job at Church House in London; her department is doing more than ever, she says, to ensure people who have given their lives to ordained ministry have realistic housing options when they retire: normally shared ownership, rented accommodation, or supported housing.

'It's a huge anxiety for a lot of people who are getting older and have given their lives to the Church,' she adds, stressing how important it is to serve the clergy well at this stage of their life, 'so we try and make that process just a bit easier for them and a bit clearer.'

Previously, Loraine - who focuses on processing mortgage applications and assisting when the time comes for retired clergy to move house or sell properties - worked for 23 years with street homeless people with mental health problems in Westminster, focusing on outreach and supported housing; exhausted on the frontline, she decided the position of Deputy Housing Manager offered the right career move in the right location - as Church House is not far from her daughter's school.

Working in Westminster means she is also within close reach of her second favourite building, the Houses of Parliament, otherwise known as the Palace of Westminster: 'It's a tremendous place to walk around and to see just the way it was built and how it's been preserved.'