St Mungo’s announces sudden death of CEO Steve Douglas

Melanie May | 10 May 2022 | News

St Mungo’s CEO Steve Douglas CBE passed away suddenly at his home on Sunday morning, 8 May, the charity has announced.

Douglas was 57, and leaves behind four children and a partner.

He joined St Mungo’s as its Chief Executive on 1 July, 2020, with a career spanning more than 25 years in the housing sector. Douglas received a CBE in the 2019 Queen’s honours list for services to housing and was committed to driving positive change within the organisation. He was particularly committed to diversity and inclusion improvements. Prior to joining St Mungo’s he was Group Chief Executive of Altair, a housing and regeneration consultancy group advising housing associations as well as central, regional and local government.

Before that he had held Director and Chief Executive positions in a number of housing related roles, which also included funding provision of homelessness services. He was Chief Executive of the Housing Corporation and Corporate Director of Neighbourhoods and Regeneration for the London Borough of Hackney which included responsibilities in relation to homelessness and temporary accommodation. Steve was also Chair of One Housing Group, who run Arlington, the homeless centre in Camden.

He led or supported many initiatives and activities including:

• First Chief Executive role at Spitalfields community based HA – based in East London
• Overseeing an £8.4bn investment programme, delivering 155,000 homes whilst Chief Executive at the Housing Corporation and regulating England’s 1,500 housing associations
• Vice Chair and Board Member at Amicus Horizon and then Optivo Housing Group for nine years
• Executive Regeneration Director at LB Hackney in run up to Olympics 2012
• One of four founding Partners at Altair, the leading housing and regeneration consultancy
• Working closely with L&Q, Optivo and the BME London to set up the Leadership 2025 initiative – with the purpose of empowering senior BME professionals to become leaders of the future

Joanna Killian, chair of the board of trustees said:

“We are all very saddened to learn of Steve’s untimely death and our thoughts are with his family and loved ones at this incredibly difficult time. He had worked tirelessly in the housing and homelessness sector for many years and was deeply committed to St Mungo’s in the short time he had been working with us.”

Responding to the news, Rick Henderson, CEO of Homeless Link said:

“Steve’s death is a tragic loss for his family, St Mungo’s and for the homelessness movement. I have worked closely Steve, in particular as a member of the Kerslake Commission which he personally instigated and continued to lead. The Commission brought people together across sectors to capture the lessons from the pandemic for homelessness, and to set out what that meant for the future. Its achievement was in large part due to Steve’s personal determination.

 

“I have worked with Steve over the years – before he came to St Mungo’s and he has long been a passionate advocate for the housing and homelessness sectors. His CBE was very well deserved. Steve’s death has come far too early. I know he would have gone on to achieve even greater things. Our thoughts are with all the staff at St Mungo’s, and of course with his family.”

About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.